The Office of Information Security at NIU is providing regular information on the latest Phishing scams in the Blackboard Organization: InfoSecurity: Recent Phishing Scams (https://webcourses.niu.edu/).
Each employee that takes the Annual Information Security Awareness Training has been enrolled in this organization and has access to this list of Phishing scams. You will see the list in the Content area of this Organization.
Please familiarize yourself with this information and refer to these messages whenever you are not sure if a message you received is a phishing scam.
There has been a recent increase in phishing campaigns that are targeting NIU employees.
These phishing emails have titles like: Key Task, Urgent Request, or Need a favor. The sender’s name may appear to be a dean, supervisor or someone you know asking for hundreds of dollars worth of gift cards from various vendors like Apple or Best Buy. Or they could be asking you to pay a bill for them, claiming that they are in a meeting and cannot step away. There is a sense of urgency, where the action needs to be completed immediately.
These phishing campaigns are successful in achieving the phisher’s goal...money! Please be on the alert for these messages so that you don’t fall for these scams.
Does phishing sound scary? It can be. The best defense is being informed and knowing how to avoid becoming a victim to a phishing email. Attackers have quite the array of ‘tricks’ they use to trap a user such as:
Be critical of the email and assess who it’s from and the reason behind it. Is the email asking for your credentials? Are they trying to get you to open an attachment? Click on a link? Sometimes it is smart to call the organization or check the organization’s website to verify if they are sending emails of this nature out to their users/customers.
Oh NO! I just answered that phishing email; what do I do now?
If you responded to a request for a password and/or provided account information to someone inadvertently:
If you receive a phishing e-mail, forward it as an attachment to abuse@niu.edu.