Technology

Phishing

There's a scam much more sophisticated than the "Nigerian Letter" scam (see The FBI description). It's called phishing and here's how it works.

This approach starts with an email purporting to be from a bank, ISP or other business with which you may do business. The email presents an apparently important reason for you to "confirm" information with them and gives you a link to an official-looking online form.

If you fill out the form, you are giving personal and financial information like credit card information and social security numbers to the scammers. This can lead to charges on your accounts or even identity theft.

Some of the newest methods involve luring you with a small amount of cash as a reward for filling out a survey.

Precautions

  • Be suspicious
  • Examine web addresses (URLs or Universal Resource Locators) in emails to see if they look like legitimate addresses
  • In general, if a URL appears in an email, type the URL directly into your browser rather than clicking or copying and pasting (what you see may not be what you get, even if you copy and paste!)
  • If in doubt, check with the Help Desk (617-521-2222, helpdesk@simmons.edu)

If you think you may have released some information to phishers, please contact Public Safety immediately at 617-521-1112.

For more information, see:

 

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