Recently, DU’s Web mail service has been the target of suspicious phishing attempts by off-campus sources.

In a statement, Vice Chancellor for University Technology Services Ken Stafford sent to the DU community he said, “The e-mail messages have been crafted to appear as though they come from within DU [however] University Technology Services will never ask for your user name and passwords via e-mail.”

The e-mail also states that if students have been victims of a phishing attempt, they should report it to is: spam@du.edu immediately.

The term “phishing” is defined as an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire person information such as user-names, passwords and credit card details, by appearing as a trustworthy entity.

A recent example of one phishing attempt was sent on March 24 to various students on campus with the subject title: Under Maintenance.

The body of the e-mail claimed that DU was upgrading its data base and e-mail center and deleting all DU e-mail account to create space for new accounts.

“To prevent your account from closing,” the e-mail said, “you will have to update it below so that we will know it’s a present used account.”

The e-mail asked to reply with the student’s user-name and password, and included a link at the end to DU’s webmail. Although the body of the e-mail may have seemed to be legitimate, the sender was “webinfo@tamu.edu” which has no connection to DU.

Last week, thousands of e-mails like this were sent to faculty, staff and students from the DU community. They were also sent to colleges around Colorado.

A few students who received e-mails such as those said they regarded them as junk mail and deleted them without even reading them, while others chose not to respond at all.

Stafford said that when DU’s Network Security center receives reports of fraudulent e-mails, technicians will determine whether the e-mails are threatening or harassing, and then DU will report them to the FBI or the police.

Then, Network Security blocks all further e-mails from that address. DU blocks an average of two million spam e-mails a day, Stafford said.

For questions or concerns about phishing attempts, contact Network Security at: abuse@du.edu or the Help Desk at (303) 871-4700.