Monday, September 9, 2013

Spam Report 9/9/2013

At approximately 2:00 pm today, the Help Desk received reports of a spam email offering money for survey taking.  A screenshot of the email text is attached to this post.

While this is different than the usual phishing emails we receive, we are posting a warning on this because it's very important to be able to identify and avoid scam emails.  Often times scammers will send out enticing emails offering vast sums of money for little to no work; in cases like these, the old adage applies:  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If you have already responded to the email, please discontinue all communication immediately.  If you have provided personal information, such as your bank account information, please contact your Bank immediately and discuss the issue, they will advise you on the proper procedure for protecting your accounts.

If you have given out any password or log in information, please follow our standard procedures for possibly compromised accounts:
  • Update your epass password at http://epass.plu.edu
  • Update your password on any sites where you used that password (i.e., if your epass was the same as your bank password, update your bank password as well)
  • Log into your Gmail and sign out of all other sessions; to do this, scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for the section which says "Last Account Activity"; click on the "Details" link; a window will appear which will let you force sign out all other sessions.
Any questions, please contact the Help Desk at 253-535-7525 or helpdesk@plu.edu.  You can also stop in at the Help Desk located on the first floor of the Library.

-D.D.

Example of too good to be true.  Click to enlarge