More than 270 unity accounts received e-mails from an external address claiming to be the University’s Communications and Technological Services. The e-mails contained messages asking students to either respond with their passwords or risk having their accounts with the University deleted.
“This was actually a smaller attack,” Director of Outreach, Communications and Consulting Stan North Martin said. “Over the summer, we’ve had many, many more.”
During the summer, attacks were delivered by e-mail to a larger quantity of students, Martin said.
According to Martin, only two students responded to the e-mail during the latest instance. One of the compromised accounts was used to continue to send out spam mail, otherwise known as phishing. Phishing is a term describing e-mails that are meant to lure in people in order to obtain information or access to private accounts.
Those who have Webmail accounts may have noticed the banners aimed towards raising awareness for phishing. ComTech has put forth an effort to educate those associated with the University through computer advertisements, educational campaigns, presentations at freshmen orientation, press and posting updates about IT, Martin said.
“We martyr for these kinds of attacks and then when we do get them, our spam filters collect a lot of these so most of these never get to personal accounts,” Martin said. “The problem is the people who are sending them are getting more and more sophisticated with their technology, so it has become a real cat and mouse game.”
Once the University detects the messages have been sent, ComTech immediately takes action and monitors accounts where spam messages are incoming and outgoing, Martin said.
Justin Carrington, a freshman in English, said the chances for phishing scams are more prevalent in the technology age.
“In this age and time I think things are more easily accessible than before, so we as humans tend to fall victim to a number of plays such as online phishing,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate that we are placed at risk. However, due to our dependence upon technology, it’s inevitable.”
Martin emphasized the importance of remembering that IT would never ask for a students password over the Internet.
“We will never ask for your password over the phone or email. Never respond to these,” said Martin. “We want folks to know we will never ask for their password.”
Krysta Jones, a freshman in English, said the spam e-mails are just a nuisance to students. “I just often wonder what kind of people create it and why,” she said. “It’s such a waste of space in my inbox.”