Yale University IP in a spam mail

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Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 7:41 am

TheFae wrote:

<snip>... A twelve cent 'ping' let them know my account was real, and from there it was a Dell card rodeo... <snip>

I'm sorry I haven't a clue either ... Embarassed

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 29 Apr 2011 Posts: 2

I think a big problem is many universities using emails like gmail, which makes it look like groups with names displayed are offical university groups. In my years as a student, if I get an email from anyone using their university email, or university affilitated groups (e.g., safety warning emails, academic advising schedule emails, etc.) it shows their name. However excluding spam (actually including the vast majority of spam as well), every email I get from outside the university just shows the email address. Unfortunately, recently some spam email is just showing their chosen names as well, making them look like University groups. Obviously this is just due to the way their email is configured, but this is what I think makes up the assumptions for the many students and I am sure this is intentionally.

I think if email addresses were displayed for everyone without having to click "show details" and internal university emails were clearly separated from externally originating ones, the problem would only effect a fraction of the number it currently affects. Obvously, email addresses can easily be spoofed, but having to do this for each university would significantly increase the workload, as well as making the fraction of scammers who won't adapt almost harmless.

In a strange coincidence, I just received my first ever phishing attempt in my life (that I opened at least) on my university email on May 13. It was from "IT Support Team," so I thought it looked legitiment, but then I read it, and it asks for my account name, email, and password, and obviously alarm bells go off in my head. And if that weren't enough, it asks me to email an external email address ([email protected]). So I checked the details and the email was actually from [email protected] (Received: from [110.159.240.124] ([110.159.240.124]) by mail.sgedt.com.my). According to a google search, the email address is a holdover from the British American Online lottery scam.

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 1:33 pm

And another one from a Columbia university, with @uc.cl -addy (phishing formart).

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 2:07 pm

I actually suspect it would be easier to phish uni emails, compared to your yahoos/hotmails etc

Providing you could find a list of addresses, from my experience just about every email in a uni inbox is either from a university faculty/service or from something you've intentionally signed up for. Much less spam and random correspondance compared to "regular" mail, so you're probably not as vigilant.

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