Just as with previous versions of this scam, the scammer is claiming to be an employment coordinator and is offering a part-time job as a virtual personal assistant. Even though this email looks to be coming from a UMBC user, the reply-to within the headers are set to <careerjobsdepartment@outlook.com> which should be a red-flag that this is phishing. Note also that the sender does not mention UMBC anywhere in the message.  The sender claims to be “the Online employment coordinator for Career & Talent Management” but does not state for whom or for what they are working.  It is not at all clear who the applicant would end up working for.

This campaign is very similar to previous scams that DoIT has seen recently. All these campaigns so far have been using a compromised UMBC account and the same reply-to email address <careerjobsdepartment@outlook.com>. For more information on these similar campaigns please see these links below.

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=101628

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=101502 

If you have received this or a similar scam (just like the ones that are linked above), please do not respond or click on any URLs.

What to do now?

If you do receive this or a similar scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

Whether you responded to the scam or not, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970  

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice. 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19 

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has seen more similar reports of a scammer using compromised UMBC accounts and claiming to be the Online employment coordinator for career and talent management. Below is the most recent example of this scam with the names and emails removed for privacy reasons.

The scammer is claiming to be UMBC’s online employment coordinator and is offering a part time job as a virtual “personal assistant.” Even though this email looks to be coming from a UMBC user, the reply-to within the headers are set to <careerjobsdepartment@outlook.com> which is a red-flag for phishing emails.

This campaign is similar to one DoIT has seen recently. All these campaigns use compromised UMBC accounts and the same reply-to email address <careerjobsdepartment@outlook.com>. For more information on these similar campaigns please see this article: https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=101502. 

If you have received this or a similar scam (like the ones linked above), please do not respond or click on any URLs.

What to do now?

If you do receive this or a similar scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

Whether you responded to the scam or not, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970  

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice. 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19 

Recently the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has seen scammers asking students to use WhatsApp as a way to communicate. This article will go over some tips to help report and spot scammers on WhatsApp.

According to WhatsApp to report a user you have a few options. If you received an unsolicited message from an unknown person you will have the option to report the number directly in chat. 

You can also report a contact or group from their profile using these steps:

• Open the chat.

• Tap on the contact or group name of the person you want to report.

• Scroll to the bottom and tap Report contact or Report group.

Finally you do have the option to send reports to WhatsApp by contacting WhatsApp directly through the app.

WhatsApp also ask users to look out for messages that could by a scam by looking for these red flags:

• Misspelling or grammatical mistakes.

• Asking for you to tap on a link.

• Asking for you to share personal and financial information. Also please do not give your personal or financial information to anyone online especially if you do not know them.

• Asking you to forward the message.

• Asking you to click on a link to “activate” new features.

• Claiming that you have to pay to use WhatsApp.

Below are two links to articles of campaigns that DoIT has seen from scammers sending job scam emails asking for students to reply with their WhatsApp information.
https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=101488

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=101178

What to do now?

If provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

If you think you have been sent a scam please report it to security@umbc.edu and if any part of the scam was through emails please provide full email headers as well. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

For more information from usa.gov please visit:

https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/security-and-privacy/staying-safe-on-whatsapp/?lang=en 

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970  

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice.     

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19  

UMBC’s Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has received reports of a fairly sophisticated phishing attack appearing to come from the Registrar’s office.

Clicking either of the buttons above will send you to a phishing site which will redirect you to yet another site which will try to collect personal information, download malicious software, or both.

What to do now?

If you do receive this or a similar phishing attempt, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any buttons or URLs. If you have already done so and provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. 

Whether you responded to the message or not, please forward it (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. 

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970  

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice. 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19 

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has seen reports of a scammer using compromised UMBC email accounts to send job scams. Below are examples of these scams with the names and email addresses removed for privacy reasons.

In these similar campaigns the scammer is using compromised UMBC accounts to impersonate UMBC members. The scammers are claiming to be the online employment coordinator for Career & Talent Management and asking for users to reply if interested.

Even though the emails look to be coming from UMBC accounts the reply-to in the headers are set to <careerjobsdepartment@outlook.com>.

The scammer has used different subject lines as well, so far DoIT has seen “virtual assistant offer!”, “Virtual job-Fair” and “virtual Work-Study” for this campaign. If you have received this or a similar email, please do not respond or click on any URLs.

What to do now?

If you do receive this or a similar scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam. 

Whether you responded to the scam or not, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970  

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice. 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19 

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has seen reports of a scammer claiming to offer students a position as an administrative assistant. The scammer is also claiming to be both Jose Burgos and Professor Phyllis Robinson. Below is an example of this scam with the subject “Job Opening.”

The message above was sent from a Gmail account <briggenjoserburgos@gmail.com> and not any official UMBC account. The email is claiming to offer a job as an administrative assistant and is asking students who are interested to reply with a functional whatsapp number and their resume.

According to reports, the scammer is using an official looking profile picture on Whatsapp and the phone number <1-903-500-6544>. The reason the scammer is asking students to use Whatsapp is that it leaves no record of the communication in UMBC systems. If you have received this or a similar email, please do not respond.

What to do now?

If you do receive this or a similar scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

Whether you responded to the scam or not, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970  

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice. 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19 

On Monday, April 26th, DoIT applied a patch to UMBC’s single sign-on solution, WebAuth, that improves security and lays the foundation for future enhancements. As a result of this change, WebAuth now briefly shows an intermediate page before redirecting the web browser to the requested site. This page quickly shows "Loading/Saving login session information from/to the browser..." .  Several users have expressed questions and concerns about this page, because it often is not on-screen long enough to read in its entirety. Rest assured that the intermediate pages are not malicious.  DoIT is actively working on improving this experience and making it less intrusive.  Within the next week you will see improvements to the text and look and feel of the pages.    Feel free to contact us if you have further questions. Thanks for bearing with us while we work to keep our infrastructure updated.

Todd Haddaway
Senior Director, Middleware and Application Infrastructure
DoIT

There have been reports to the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) that a scammer is calling people and claiming to be from UMBC.The scammer is said to be trying to run an insurance scam and is calling from <14438873438>.  The caller ID shows up as UMBC.

According to usa.gov here are some helpful tips to protect yourself from telephone scams. For more information please see the link below.

• You can register your phone number with the National Do Not Call registry. If you continue to receive telemarketing calls after you register they are most likely scams.

• Be wary of calls claiming that you have won a prize or vacation.

• Hang up or do not answer any suspicious phone calls.

• Be cautious of caller ID as scammers can spoof or change the phone number that appears on the screen.

• Do not give into any pressure from the scammer to take immediate actions.

• Do not say anything if the scammer begins by asking “Can you hear me?” as it is stated that this is a common tactic for scammers to record and have proof of you saying “yes”.

• Do not provide any financial or personal information to the caller.

• Do not send money over the phone especially if the caller asks for it to be wire transferred or with prepaid cards.

The usa.gov article also gives a few links to report telephone scams.

• The Federal Trade Commision (FTC): https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/?pid=A 

• The Do Not Call Registry: https://www.donotcall.gov/ 

• The Federal Communications Commision (FCC): https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us 

• You can also report any scam related to UMBC to security@umbc.edu 

What to do now?

If you received this or a similar scam and have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

Whether you responded to the scam or not, please report it to security@umbc.edu. If any part of the scam was through email please provide full email headers as well. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

For more information from usa.gov please visit:

https://www.usa.gov/common-scams-frauds 

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970 

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice.    

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19  

The Department of Information Technology (DoIT) has been notified of a scam. The scammer, impersonating a member of the UMBC staff, asks users to deposit a fake check. Attached below is a sample of the message and the check. Please note that the name of the recipient was removed for privacy reasons.

__________________________________________________________________________

From: Lisa Drouillard 

Date: Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 8:42 AM

Subject: Paycheck

To: <Your Email>

Hello <Your Name>

Follow the instruction below to deposit  the check

Print out at 67% and Cut to a ( check size/shape ) At the back of your check Endorse by writing Your 

Full name

Mobile Deposit Only

Your account number

Sign.

Once you done you make a mobile deposit

Thank You 

Account Officer

Lisa Drouillard

Account Officer

__________________________________________________________________________

If you have received this email, DO NOT DEPOSIT THE CHECK. If you have ALREADY DEPOSITED the check, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

IMMEDIATELY forward the email and the check to security@umbc.edu along with the email headers.

Instruction on how to locate the email headers can be found here: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970 

Follow us on myUMBC:https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/itsecurity

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has received reports of another administrative assistant job scam. Below is an example of this job scam email in which the scammer is claiming to be Robert Williams.  Mr. Williams does work for UMBC, but not in the Health Administration and Policy Program (HAPP).  He is not advertising for an administrative assistant. He did not send this message.  The From field is a fake.  The phone number below is not his.  

This is a scam.  

The scammer is attempting to establish contact in order to fake an offer of employment, build trust, and then get you to purchase something expensive (e.g., iTunes gift cards, cryptocurrency, etc.) that can be transmitted back to them by text message or email.  At that time, you will receive a picture of a check to print and scan for deposit using your bank-by-phone app.  The check will bounce but your bank will take from 3-5 days to tell you this.  Your money will be gone.  You will not get it back.

You can avoid all of that.  If you receive this or any similar message, please do not respond.

What to do now?

If you do receive this or a similar scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

Whether you responded to the scam or not, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970 

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice.    

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19