Another Phishing Alert

Phishing Alert Notification

It has been reported that people are receiving an emailed phishing scam. The subject usually says something like “Dear biola.edu User” and the body of the message is similar to that shown below. If you have received the email below, please know that (1) it is NOT from Biola IT and (2) it is very common for these email scams to be redistributed at a later date with only slightly different content, such as a different subject or return address.

Example of the phishing scam

Dear biola.edu User

Your email account has been used to send numerous Spam mails recently from a foreign IP. As a result, the biola.edu has received advice to suspend your account. However, you might not be the one promoting this Spam, as your email account might have been compromised. To protect your account from sending spam mails, you are to confirm your true ownership of this account by providing your original username (*) and PASSWORD (*) as a reply to this message. On receipt of the requested information, the “biola.edu” web email support shall block your account from Spam.

Failure to do this will violate the biola.edu email terms & conditions. This will render your account inactive.

NOTE: You will be send a password reset message in next seven (7) working days after undergoing this process for security reasons.

Thanks for using biola.edu

Biola University, Webmail Access (Powered By Eircom).
© 2009 Biola University • All rights reserved

Avoid phishing scams

Phishing scams are social engineering tools designed to induce panic in the reader. Be suspicious of any email message that asks you to enter or verify personal information through an email reply or through any web page other than biola.edu. Also, please avoid responding to email from unknown senders and clicking links in a message. When you recognize a phishing message in your Biola inbox, delete the email message from your inbox to avoid accidentally accessing it.

If you feel the message may be legitimate, contact the IT Helpdesk (x4740) to see if you really do need to take the action described in the email message. If you’d like you can also ask the IT Helpdesk how you can report the message as SPAM by sending us necessary information to update our filter.

Thanks for the opportunity to serve you.

Branden Kirk
Network Administrator, Network & Telecom Services

IT Helpdesk
Biola University
562-903-4740