University of Windsor Warns its Users about a New Scam Email Campaign

Windsor.ctvnews.ca reported on 12th November, 2013 stating that IT Services of University of Windsor, located at Ontario, Canada, is warning their staff and students to be aware of an email scam which is currently making the rounds.

It (referring to the scam email) asks users of University webmail to validate their accounts within 24 hours of receiving the notice - claiming that there is high number of inactive account on the server.

IT staff of the University described these fake emails as an attempt to phish their personal information.

A phishing attempt is an email that aims at attracting recipients to secretly obtain their passwords, account numbers, personal data or attracting to a website made to hijack the computer of the recipient. IT officials, investigating the ongoing scam, said that few of the emails are easily identifiable but most of them are identified with difficulty as they appear to be authentic as per last detail.

They elaborated that being deceived by these emails does not make one's confidential information liable to be attacked but the security of entire university comes at as scammers can easily hack the machines protected by the firewall of the University. Successful hacking of the systems makes it easy and quick for scammers to start more cyberattacks and may compromise other's confidential data saved in the system of University like grade sheet of students, salary worksheet of staff or other information.

The Officials added that with the increase in sophistication of phishing attacks, many scammers can imitate email of a financial institution like University of Windsor in the abovementioned case.

They noted that University of Windsor or any other reputed institution will never ask students, faculty or staff to confirm their identity or to provide confidential or personal information by e-mail as is being done in this case.

Officials of University conclude that if you have fallen for a phishing attack, then you should change your passwords immediately and should contact your IT service provider.

Moreover, just like this University, Washington University, Missouri, US in October 2013, also notified its students and staff about a phishing campaign designed to trick its innocent users.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/22/2013