Friday, April 02, 2010
To raise awareness about dangerous phishing scams circulating throughout the University, Penn State is sponsoring two anti-phishing events this April. The events will occur from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m on Thursday, April 15 in the HUB Robeson Center and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21 in Findlay Hall Commons, both on the University Park campus. ITS staff will hand out bags of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish snacks along with phishing tips to help students, faculty, and staff learn how to protect themselves from fraudulent e-mails and other types of computer scams. (more)
Monday, December 14, 2009
Fraudulent e-mails that appear to be coming from University locations such as administrator@psu.edu, webmail@psu.edu and helpdesk@psu.edu continue to be sent to Penn State faculty, staff and students. These e-mails, which ask recipients to provide their individual user ID and password, are part of a variety of dangerous phishing scams, which have targeted all colleges and universities since 2008. The e-mail messages are NOT sent by administrative offices at Penn State. Do not reply to these messages, as they are not legitimate and could lead to the compromise of your access account, your computer or your data. ITS strongly recommends that the messages be deleted. Anyone who already has replied to one of these fraudulent messages should contact Security Operations and Services (SOS) at 814-863-9533. (more)
Monday, June 08, 2009
Fraudulent e-mails that appear to have come from the Penn State helpdesk have been sent to Penn State faculty, staff and students. These e-mails, which ask recipients to provide their userids and passwords, appear to be part of a phishing scam. These e-mail messages were not sent by the ITS Help Desk or by helpdesk@psu.edu. Please do NOT reply to these messages as they are fake. ITS strongly recommends that the messages be deleted. Anyone who replied to any of these fraudulent messages should contact Security Operations & Services at (814) 863-9533. (more)
Monday, March 30, 2009
There were two new variants of phishing spam reported Monday, March 30. One is a fairly familiar phishing variant pretending to be Web-based e-mail server maintenance, appears to be from the phony address "PS-Notes" and is requesting a user's action in order to prevent irregular service. The other is a fake announcement for a free bi-weekly e-mail newsletter supposedly with content of interest to the Penn State community, from the fake address "Penn State E-News Letter Admin." (more)
Monday, February 02, 2009
A few new phishing e-mail scams targeting the Penn State community have come to light recently. E-mail messages claiming to be from EDU.WEBMAIL TEAM or other addresses asking for verification of information and warning that failure to do so will deactivate the user's account are fraudulent and appear to be part of a phishing scam. These e-mail messages were not sent by the ITS Help Desk or by WebMail@psu.edu. Another scam has popped up on the popular message board Craig's List, and targets students looking for housing for next year. According to reports, some attractive housing listings list a Gmail address as the only contact information. When inquiring about the property, the automatic email reply will request that the interested party complete some form of credit check, including personal information or the means to access personal information. Some may have a false rental agency Web site backing up the email reply. Again, this appears to be a phishing scam, and should be avoided. (more)
