Phishing Scam Targeting Employees of University of Illinois

The Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA-based University of Illinois is under the spell of a new e-mail scam targeting its employees as well as their payroll data as Information Technology division of the university detected recently, so published news-gazette.com, December 3, 2015.

Quintessentially according to University officials, the 'phishing' electronic mail campaign asserts about one payroll verification document as per which there's a wage increase entitled to the employee so the e-mail recipient requires following a web-link followed with logging in for perusing the verification report. News-gazette.com reported this.

However, if the user logs in, the phishers at the other end seize his password for subsequent use for diverting his paycheck onto their own account.

Chief Privacy and Security Officer Joe Barnes, who issued an e-mail for the university's employees at around 3pm on 3rd December, cautioned that anybody believing the scam and following its instructions would be endangered with having his paycheck rerouted towards the scammers'. So it's urged that users avoid visiting the website and enter their UI username and password except when fully sure the website belongs to or has connection with UI, Barnes wrote. News-gazette.com reported this.

Barnes further stated that the campus' Technology Services Privacy and Information Security group was doing vigorously towards stopping the electronic mails from landing inside the employees' inboxes; nevertheless, a few e-mails were sure to circumvent the University's defenses.

Unfortunately, similar to this, previously too e-mail scammers targeted UI when during 2008, approximately 600 phishing e-mails landed in the e-mail accounts of UI. Within 2 e-mail messages, the fraudsters attempted at deceiving users into divulging particulars of their e-mail accounts with the University.

The scams most easily show the red flag because UI won't ever request inmates to reveal their password or other sensitive particulars through e-mail. So if any e-mail directs to provide password, etc., it should be overlooked. Not only this, the red flag is also evident from the spelling and grammatical mistakes reflected in the e-mails.

Thus, on the website of University of Illinois, it's suggested that anybody receiving an e-mail asserting it's from UI, he/she may send the message at report-spam@illinois.edu.

» SPAMfighter News - 12/10/2015