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Phishing for students

Protecting against unwanted scam emails

Samantha Rhodes

Many University of Toledo students receive scam emails through their Rocket email. The scams offer easy money.

Katelyn Montgomery, Staff Reporter

Of all the technology that has come about over the last ten years, the Internet is one tool many believe to have mastered. Nowadays, looking out for viruses and scams is something we do without thinking. But what happens when the scammers get just as clever as we are?

Unfortunately, scammers, using their technique known as phishing, are evolving and, according to UT News, are doing so by targeting the University of Toledo and other college campuses all over the United States.

The latest form of phishing, or social engineering, seems to target both students and staff via email the past few months. Director of Internal Audit Dave Cutri said a phishing scam can take multiple forms.

“It’s usually defined as an email that you’ll get from someone pretending to be who they’re not.” Cutri said.

Cutri said they often pretend to be the IT department claiming there is an upgrade taking place and they need a username and password to do the updates.

Matthew Junod, UT’s information security officer and manager, added that often phishing scams related to UT are from sources overseas pretending to be the financial department or offering a job.

Phishing scams are not new to the online world — or Toledo.

“At UT, we receive over one million spam messages a day that we block,” Junod said. “In the last 24 hours we received and blocked 1.1 million messages.”

Although this scheme is common to campus, UT officials are working hard to stop the situation, according to Junod. While UT encounters over one million spam messages a day, over 800,000 of those are not seen because there are filters set up to detect patterns in the scams.

Cutri — on behalf of the IT department — said they are always updating security to protect students here.

“We are in a constant state of readiness,” Cutri said. “As the phishers get smarter, we tend to get smarter as well.”

Cutri suggests one way students can help protect themselves is to take a look at the IP address. Many of these scams come from overseas, so the address look different.

“Based on the number [in the IP address], you can figure out geographic location. A certain series of numbers means it’s from the United States, a certain series of numbers means it’s from China, et cetra,” Cutri said.

If the format or grammar of an email seems unlike traditional emails sent by the University of Toledo, Junod said IT can take a look at the IP address and relieve any concerns about unfamiliar emails. He urged this action in order to get accurate numbers on how many scams students see.

While this is encouraged, students do not always need to go to IT for help every time an unfamiliar email comes by.

Aimee Portala, a print and digital communication specialist at UT, said she doesn’t remember the spam being a huge issue.

“Even as a student, I remember getting emails about it saying, ‘Hey, don’t click on these things,’ but I don’t ever remember it being a big issue aside from ‘Be aware,’” Portala said. “Nothing has changed that much.”

For concerns about being victimized by an email scam, students and staff may call the IT Help Desk at 419-530-2400. The help desk may also be reached by email at [email protected], on their website at http://ithelp.utoledo.edu, or at one of the walk-in centers offered on Main Campus and the Health Science Campus.

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