Beware of a new phishing attempt going around asking users to follow a link to access some e-mail messages. The Information Security Office has received many notifications of this e-mail floating around. The e-mail format is as follows:
“Subject: Re: Urgent/Important Maintainance
Dear user@luc.edu,
In regards to the ongoing maintainance. Some of your important messages were queued on our mail server. Please Click here to view or download your pending messages.
Some maintenance may still be undergoing for large improvement updates that will increase our security.
Please Note: To avoid any complication, it is madatory you follow the instructions above.
Thank you for your patience and cooperation,
–IT Support Team
THIS TRANSMISSION IS INTENDED AND RESTRICTED FOR USE BY user@luc.edu; ONLY. IT MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL AND/OR PRIVILEGED INFORMATION EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER FEDERAL OR STATE LAW. IN THE EVENT SOME OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY RECEIVES THIS TRANSMISSION, SAID RECIPIENT IS HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT ANY DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION, OR DUPLICATION OF THIS TRANSMISSION OR ITS CONTENTS IS PROHIBITED. IF YOU SHOULD RECEIVE THIS TRANSMISSION IN ERROR, PLEASE DELETE THE FILE FROM YOUR SYSTEM, AND DESTROY ANY HARD COPIES OF THIS TRANSMISSION. THANK YOU.”
In order to prevent falling into a phishing trap, look for a few things before taking any action(s):
- Check the sender in the top of the e-mail before following any links. Normally a legitimate organization will have a somewhat simple naming convention for their e-mail accounts (relating to the user’s name), and their domain will coincide with their company name. Any e-mails coming from the University will have a domain of luc.edu.
- Look for spelling/grammatical errors within the e-mail. For example, in the message above, the sender misspells “maintenance” and “mandatory.”
- Hover over the link in the e-mail and check either at the bottom of the window or in the pop-up that shows up where it will lead you to. Make sure that the link has luc.edu in the address before continuing.
If you received this e-mail, or receive it in the future, do not click the link. Simply delete the e-mail, and remove it from your Deleted Items folder. If by any chance the phishing link was clicked, please change your password immediately, and call the ITS Help Desk for assistance at (773) 508 – 4487.
If you receive a suspicious email in the future, please forward it to datasecurity@luc.edu. For additional questions regarding this phishing scam, or any other information security concerns, please feel free to contact the Information Security Office at datasecurity@luc.edu.