Phishing Scam Seeks University Students’ E-mail Details

The Indiana University South Bend issued a warning to its students on February 16, 2008 that a new phishing scam could potentially harm them. WSBT published this in news on February 17, 2008.

Although scams of these kinds are common, this particular case is slightly different in that the perpetrators are asking for students' e-mail details. According to reports, attackers in the scam are sending out e-mails appearing to be from system administrators. The e-mails tell the recipients that to update the university's e-mail account database, they are required to provide their details.

A university student said that as part of a routine check of his e-mail account, on February 16, 2008, he found that an alert claiming to be IT warning asked him to verify his IUSB e-mail urgently.

The alert pretended to be the university's notification to students regarding a phishing scam. The university said that it received many such alerts every month, mostly from banks. However, according to officials, this incident was different.

Ken Baierl, Director of Communications of IU South Bend, said that the perpetrators pretended to be from the helpdesk at IU South Bend. This helpdesk is the university's IT helpdesk that deals with the IT concerns of inmates, Baierl noted. WSBT published Baierl's statement on February 17, 2008.

The nature of the incident seems to show that the scammers are not really after the students' financial information. Baierl said that the perpetrators could be looking for space to store their bootleg movies on the university's servers.

One other university student, Eric Bascom, said that he is shocked as this phishing infringed on students' privacy. He feared the fraudsters would get all his addresses, e-mails and financial records and with that information, they could inflate the bill amount.

Further, according to the university, the new phishing incident doesn't only impact the South Bend branch. It therefore notified all the campuses at the IU about the phishing scam. The university advises its students not to respond to such e-mails. But in case they do, it should follow with resetting of their password, or they should get in touch with the IT division right away.

Related article: Phishing With A Redirector Code

» SPAMfighter News - 2/25/2008