There is a phishing campaign circulating this week targeting international students. An example message is provided here. Note that it is attempting to impersonate university leadership and is making alarming statements that might cause someone to panic and act without thinking. The message is also full of grammatical errors and prompting recipients to share personal […]
Category: Awareness Notices
New anti-phishing tools to deploy this week
Dear campus community, You likely have noticed the recent increase in malicious emails in your inbox. Universities around the globe are experiencing similar increases, and we’re working around the clock to mitigate the problem and prevent continued phishing attacks. Technology Services’ Privacy and Cybersecurity team is turning on the first of several planned solutions over […]
[Person shared] “2022staffresource” with you
Another instance of a malicious file shared through legitimate service (OneDrive, Google Drive) purporting to be from a VIP, in this case, the Dean.
Re: Employee COVID-19 Program
Be on the lookout for COVID-related “assistance” scams like this one currently going around. This is not advertising a legitimate program. Some clues are: 1) the bit.ly short URL obscuring the true destination of the support page, 2) the fact that this is being sent by a .edu address for a different institution, 3) that […]
$500/week work opportunity
Do not reply to the email address in this message. Consider it suspicious any time someone sending email from @illinois.edu asks you to reply to a Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail/AOL address. Be wary of emails with attachments, especially those with offers that seem too good to be true.
Text-Based Scams
Text-based Phishing Scams We’re starting to see an increase in text-message phishing scams like the example below. If you receive a text from unknown origins with a link and/or time pressure and/or claims of too-good-to-be-true offers, we recommend blocking the number and deleting the text. Do NOT click the links or respond to the sender. […]
Tutoring Scam
We have recently seen examples of “tutoring scam” emails at the university. Please see the example image below and visit these links from other institutions outlining the common elements of this type of scam. https://police.ucsd.edu/alerts/tutor-scam.html https://www.berkeleyparentsnetwork.org/recommend/tutors/scam As always, if you aren’t sure whether an email is legitimate, you can reach out to your local IT […]
Email impersonating Dean
Impersonating a VIP – “urgent request”
Be aware that scammers are continuing to send emails purporting to be VIPs like Deans and Dept. Heads. See other examples and info in this post: https://publish.illinois.edu/phishingalerts/?s=impersonat&submit=Search Here is an example from today, Nov 20, 2020.
ALERT: SURS Phone Scam
Sharing the following from an IT Professional on campus. He has verified with SURS that they do NOT make personal phone calls. If someone purporting to be SURS calls you and asks about verifying your identity for insurance or asks questions about HIPAA, please hang up.