Phishing

What is Phishing?

Phishing is the practice of sending out fake emails, or spam, written to appear as if they have been sent by a reputable organization, with the intent of luring the recipient into revealing sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, account IDs, ATM PINs or credit card details.  These emails usually claim that it is necessary to “update” or “verify” your account information.  They often urge people to reply to the email and provide such information or to click on a link from the email which takes them to a bogus website. Any information entered on the bogus website or through email will be captured by the criminals for their own fraudulent purposes.

One should NEVER respond to such messages in any way as it may risk the security of the accounts and data on our network.

As per policy, login credentials should NEVER be sent via insecure email, and neither ITS personnel nor an automated system at DA would ever request that credentials be sent via email.

If you ever suspect that you may have revealed your login credentials or any other secure information to an unauthorized entity, please contact the ITS Help Desk at x1444 or helpdesk@deerfield.edu immediately.

The following is an example of a phishing email received by some DA addresses:

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From: Help Desk [mailto:help@desk.net]

Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 9:55 PM

Subject: Dear Account User

Dear Account User,

This message is from the helpdesk support  center. Be informed that your mail box has exceeded the storage limit set by your administrator/database, you are currently running out of context and you may not be able to send or receive some new mail until you re-validate your mailbox.

To prevent your email account from been closed, re-validate your mailbox below to enable us increase the storage limit:

User Name:

User Email:

Email Password:

Your account shall remain active after you have successfully confirmed your account details.Thank you for your swift response to this notification we apologize for any inconvenience.

We appreciate your continued help and support.

Regards,

Help desk.

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This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

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