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

Spam Report 8/29/13

At approximately 6:30 pm on August 28th, a wave of spam emails went out to many users on campus.  The Help Desk began receiving reports this morning of the email.  At the bottom of this post is a write up of how we determined this email to be fraudulent.

As always, whenever you receive a message you think might be a phishing email, err on the side of caution and ignore it.  If you ever aren't sure, call the Help Desk at 253-535-7525, and we will be glad to help confirm or deny it.

If you responded to the email and provided any information, please do the following:

• 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.

If you need assistance with any of these steps or have questions about the phishing email, please contact the Help Desk at 253-535-7525 or email us at helpdesk@plu.edu.

Our analysis of the email (Click to Enlarge)

 

Spam email report 4/5/2013

At approximately 12:00 pm today, the Help Desk began receiving reports of a spam email message being sent to users at PLU, claiming to be from the I&TS Help desk.  A copy of the spam message will be included at the bottom of this post.

As always, I&TS will never request your password; any emails claiming to be from I&TS or from the Help Desk claiming you need to email your password are fraudulent.  If you are ever not sure if a message is legitimate or not, always err on the side of caution, and contact the Help Desk at 253-535-7525 or e-mail us at helpdesk@plu.edu.  We will be more than glad to help determine if a message is legitimate or not.


If you accidentally responded to one of these messages, please go to http://epass.plu.edu and use the Change Your ePass Password link to change your password immediately.  Please contact the Help Desk if you need assistance updating your password.


---Spam Message---
From: IT Helpdesk <helpdesk@heldesk.edu> <kbrown@eureka.edu>
Date: Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 12:38 PM
Subject: Important! 2013 Webmail Upgrade to Prevent Email Account Deletion
To:


Dear Edu Webmail User,
This message is from IT Help Desk to all our email Users. We are
upgrading to a new email version to help increase the storage megabyte
and are therefore deleting all unused email account as a result of the
non-existence of users as well as updating our university directory
Also be informed of the serious technical difficulty at hand. Our
Webmail Database that records your webmail data and profile has just
been contrasted by a serious circulating internet virus which may make
you lose your contacts. As a result we are upgrading to a new email
version to help increase the storage megabyte and are therefore
deleting all unused email account as a result of the non-existence of
users.
To confirm the your account is currently in use and to integrate the
recent maintenance carried out in e-mail system and also help in
resetting your space in our database and erase the virus circulating
our webmail. Reply back with the information as required below;
Username/Account ID:...
Password:...
Faculty/Department:....
Email:......
Warning! Webmail owner that refuses to update their account by
providing the requested details above after reading this mail will
loose his / her account permanently.
Account Alert Code: X3XX00178SU
Thank you for using our Webmail
IT Help Desk
Computing & Communications
Copyright (c) 2013. All Rights Reserved.
---End Spam Message---

Spam email reported 11/15/12

A series of spam e-mails were reported to the Help Desk at approximately 8:20 am this morning.  The text of the e-mail reads as follows:

It has come to our notice that most of our email accounts have been opened with unprotected browsers/computers and most Users no longer use their email accounts. This has created room for spams, bulk and unsolicited emails. Our Help Desk want to deactivate all accounts which have been compromised.

To validated and confirm that you are actually the original owner of this account, you are to fill up the short form in the link below and click submit;Update Your E-mail Account. 
[link omitted]

As always, the Help Desk will never solicit your password via e-mail. All changes to your account password should be done through our ePass tools at http://newepass.plu.edu.

If you responded to the e-mail, please take the following steps:

1. Go to http://newepass.plu.edu and use the ePass Account Tools to update your password
2. Log into your e-mail and scroll to the bottom of the page; in the bottom right hand side will be a section regarding Last Account Activity. Beneath this will be the Details link (Screenshot 1); click on this link and it will open a new window. In the new window, please click on the button which reads Sign out all other sessions. (Screenshot 2)
3. If you have used your e-mail password as the password for other accounts (Online Banking, Online Stores, etc.), please change the password on those accounts as well.

If you are ever uncertain as to the validity of an e-mail, please contact the Help Desk at 253-535-7525 or e-mail us at helpdesk@plu.edu.

Screenshot 1
(click to enlarge)

Screenshot 2
(click to enlarge)