On a regular basis, the Swarthmore community receives emails from malicious individuals requesting their passwords and sometimes other personally sensitive information. These emails are often cleverly disguised to look like they originated from an official source such as ITS. These attacks on the community are known as “phishing”. {For more info, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing} Unfortunately, when community members respond to these bogus password requests, it results in their email accounts being used (almost instantaneously) to send massive quantities of spam to the Internet. {See a blog entry from this summer: Email, Spam & Undeliverable Messages } Further, this can result in … Continue reading Password Requests via Email = Bogus!

On occasion, Swarthmore College email users are subjected to focused phishing attacks appearing to originate from the Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union. Phishing involves sending a bogus email, appearing to originate from a legitimate source, which attempts to get the recipient to click on a malicious URL. Phishing emails typically try to steal a user’s logon credentials, or other private information, by getting them to enter information into a malicious site that can look exactly like the authentic site. These emails rely on social engineering to mislead, cause panic, and/or coerce the user into thinking the email is legitimate. According … Continue reading Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union Phishing Emails