Emails seeking to trick users of College accounts surfaced again last week, as a wave of messages from the sender vpiccolo@inti.gob.ar made their way into Zimbra and Google Apps accounts at the school.
Google Apps accounts seem to have caught this email in their spam folder, while Zimbra accounts have not. In either case, the email, known as a phishing email, attempts to convince users to submit information under the pretense of “validat(ing) your account against spy-ware and Spam Mails.”
This is not the first incident of phishing emails targeting the College’s users. In fact, it appears to be a common occurrence.
“According to our spam filtering device, we blocked about 350 unique phishing e-mails in August,” said Matthew Golden, associate vice president for Communications and College Relations.
Though phishing emails are a concern, according to Golden, the College community has become adept at finding and reporting the messages to abuse@tcnj.edu.
“IT regularly sends notices to the campus reminding people that we would never ask for their password via email,” Golden said.
There are controls in the College’s email system that limit exposure to phishing emails, alert IT when they are sent out and then lock the hacked account, Golden explained.
College email accounts may face frustrating circumstances if they fall for the scam. “The damage that occurs when people are duped by a phishing scam is that the scammers use that e-mail account to send out other phishing or spam e-mails,” he said. “When that happens, the individual victim will needs to contact TCNJ Help Desk to get their account reinstated.”
