Masked as urgent messages from legitimate sources, more e-mail scams are being sent to Ohio University students and employees than ever before.

Phishing scams, whose senders attempt to trick recipients into disclosing personal information, typically imitate an e-mail from the recipient’s bank or Internet provider, Media Specialist Katie Quaranta wrote in an e-mail. She refused to make anyone in OU’s Office of Information Technology available for an interview.

“(Scams) are becoming more common,” Quaranta said, adding OU receives them daily. Last year, scams hit OU about once a month, and came about once a week last quarter, she said.

Other universities nationwide have increasingly been hit with scams, according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education published last month. At Indiana University, a scammer sent 10,000 spam messages within four minutes of receiving a user’s ID and password.

OIT sent a universitywide e-mail warning students about a phishing scam urging students not to reply with their username and password.

“A few weeks ago, we would see 50-60 replies off a scam,” Quaranta said, “Now, it’s more like 10 or 20.”

From April 1 to May 19, 16 students and six employees responded to scams or sent scams from their e-mail, which is a sign of a corrupted account, according to OIT.

OIT estimates a scam reaching several thousand OAK accounts is worth eight hours of labor for one person.

Scammers might use a student’s username and password to send scams to others or access the student’s information.
OIT asks students not to reply to the scam and to forward any suspected scams or viruses to servicedesk@ohiou.edu. OIT contacts any OAK accounts that responded to the scam.