Phishing e-mail sent to Mark Twain residents
Published May 9, 2008
On Tuesday, Mark Twain residents received a phishing e-mail in their MU e-mail accounts. Phishing occurs when a person obtains other people’s e-mail addresses and their personal information in order to commit fraud, said Brandon Hough, manager of Information Security and Account Management.
The e-mail tells students to report unsolicited e-mails to different Web sites. It tells students to report the e-mails and forward the unsolicited e-mails to the various Web sites listed in the e-mail.
After students received the phishing e-mail, Mark Twain residents were notified it was not a legitimate e-mail and were told not to respond to the e-mail or send any personal information to the Web sites.
“There are a variety of ways to get e-mail addresses,” Hough said.
Companies often hire students to harvest other students’ e-mail addresses.
“Usually companies will send the e-mails from one system to another system to make it difficult to trace,” Hough said.
The original e-mail has been tracked down, but Hough said he could not figure out where it was tracked.
“There is no way to track it down to a specific individual,” Hough said.
MU is in the process of trying to lock down e-mail addresses.
“Raising awareness is the best thing we can do,” Hough said.
