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Articles and Announcements

4/17/2008 - Fraudulent E-mails Claiming to be from University Administration Reported

Several variations of fraudulent e-mail messages claiming to be from UIOWA Support, UIOWA.EDU, Webmaster@uiowa, etc. have been reported over the last several months. These e-mails claim you must reply with personal information, such as your password, or risk having your accounts deactivated.

These are not legitimate messages. ITS will never request your password be sent in an e-mail. Please delete the message if you receive it. These "spear phishing" e-mails are particularly difficult to block at the gateway because they are so targeted. However, ITS does its best to block these e-mails from coming through as soon as they are detected and to block responses to the address from which they are sent. If you accidentally replied to one to these messages with your password, change your Hawk ID password immediately at http://hawkid.uiowa.edu.

Sample Text of Fraudulent E-mail (Note: There are several variations of the email exist. This is just a sample.)

From: UIOWA Team <messagecenter@uiowa.edu>
Reply-To: <uiowa@live.com>
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:15:27 -0600
Conversation: CONFIRM YOUR UIOWA EMAIL ACCOUNT
Subject: CONFIRM YOUR UIOWA EMAIL ACCOUNT

CONFIRM YOUR UIOWA EMAIL ACCOUNT

Dear Uiowa Email Account Owner,

This message is from UIOWA messaging center to all UIOWA email
account owners. We are currently upgrading our data base and
e-mail account center. We are deleting all unused email account to
create space for new accounts.

To prevent your account from being deactivated you will have to
update it.

CONFIRM YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT
Email Username : ...............
Email Password : ..............
Date of Birth : ..................
Country or Territory : .........

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her
account within Seven days of receiving this email will lose his or
her account permanently.

Thank you for using Uiowa !
Warning Code:USV64MT1

Thanks,
Uiowa Team
UIOWA.EDU BETA

2/12/2008 - Avoid Instant Messenger Viruses

You've just clicked on a link you received from your buddy via an instant messaging program (AIM, MSN, etc.). What happens next? Unfortunately a lot more than you may think. Click here for more information.

Report a Security Incident

ITS announcement regarding e-mail viruses and attachments

Past Security Articles and Announcements

Protect Your Computer and Personal Information!

ITS offers a number of different services to help you protect your computer. We recommend using the following steps below to help protect your computer from viruses and from being compromised.

Helpful Security Tips

Other ITS Security Resources

Last Updated: 04/27/2008