Phishing scams have existed since the 1990s when hackers posed as AOL employees to steal credit card information. Since then, hackers and scammers have only gotten more talented and skilled.
Bradley students are no strangers to these scams, either. While emails offering jobs that seem too good to be true have been sent year-round, a new scam involving the claiming of classes surfaced over the summer.
Since the volume of these scams is increasing, Bradley’s administration began warning students and faculty to beware of suspicious emails and how to avoid being scammed.
Senior biochemistry major Chelsea Smith has dealt with these emails for all four years. She said she noticed an increase in scam emails towards the end of last semester and has taken some of the recommended actions to help mitigate these attacks.
“Just this last week is when I got the email that actually told me that my account may have been compromised and that it was impacting refunds,” Smith said.
She has since created a new password and continues to use multifactor authentication (MFA) for her Bradley account.
In an email to students, University Communications said all students will receive refund checks rather than a direct deposit to protect students’ accounts.
“The scammers were trying to defraud students out of their financial aid,” Chief Information Security Office David Scuffham said. “After scammers get access [to MyBradley accounts], they sign in as the student, change bank account numbers and redirect where the books and miscellaneous education funds will be transferred.”
Scuffham also says people are better than any modern technology at detecting phishing emails. When students or faculty identify an email as phishing, they can report it to the police or forward it to phishing@bradley.edu.
Sophomore painting major Abbie Branca and Smith say they recognize phishing emails by their unconventional email addresses. Typically, phishing emails will not be Bradley-affiliated and often have an empty subject line.
“I make sure to completely read through the email,” Branca said. “I also check in with my group of friends to see if they also got the email.”
Scuffham says students and faculty need to stay alert and report scams as soon as possible. The sooner a scam is identified and forwarded to the phishing email, the sooner Bradley’s team, including Information Security, the email administrators, the IT Service Desk and BUPD, can handle the threat.
“A phishing mailbox allows us to monitor trends, new attacks and analyze the data,” Scuffham said.
Using MFA and different passwords for accounts can help deter scammers. Not clicking on unofficial links from unknown senders also inhibits them. Because the technology to stop these attacks altogether does not exist, it is up to students and staff to protect their personal information.
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