Sophisticated Phishing E-mail Assault Strikes UI Employees
According to officials of Iowa, US-based University of Iowa, many employees of the academia recently got tricked into divulging their private data that landed up with cyber thugs who then effectively stole money via an advanced e-mail phishing scam, thus published modbee.com, November 25, 2013.
Associate Vice-President and Chief Information Officer at the University of Iowa, Steve Fleagle stated that a minimum of 82 employees had their accounts compromised, possibly because of the phishing scam. Modbee.com published this.
Joe Brennan, Spokesman of UI elaborated that within all instances, employees understandably clicked web-links followed with providing password along with login details utilized for accessing the Internet facilities of the university. Kwwl.com published this, November 26, 2013.
The scam's perpetrators, according to Brennan, attempted at altering direct deposit details in order that the paychecks of the employees would get directed into the criminals' own bank accounts. This way, the latter effectively stole approximately $20,000 from 2 such staff members.
UI Officials remark that phishing attacks have been observed increasing enormously both in sophistication and number, with a few appearing strikingly genuine. Already during the current semester, 800 phishing campaigns have struck through campus e-mail. Now.uiowa.edu published this, November 20, 2013.
The Officials further state that the university's Information Technology Services (ITS) won't ever dispatch e-mail to campus users requesting confirmation of their own sensitive or login information. Therefore, campus Internauts mustn't click web-links or answer messages containing the same, since that'll present websites customarily loading malware onto their PCs, besides collecting personal information.
Reportedly, cops at UI have started one security probe together with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In the meantime, several changes are being done at the University for blocking e-mails as well as safeguarding employee data.
According to Brennan, university experts instantly locked all impacted A/Cs while seeking changes to their passwords. Moreover, the university will now ask employees for giving more personal details aside usernames/passwords for knowing certain account information. E-mails will also be sent to employees following changes in information related to direct deposits, published qctimes.com, November 25, 2013.
Finally, University Officials stated measures towards increasing knowledge regarding attack prevention will be adopted.
ยป SPAMfighter News - 12/2/2013
