Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
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Job Phishing Alert: Department of Biological Sciences

An Example of Red Flags In A Phishing Message

Recently, the Division of Information Technology(DoIT) received multiple reports of a job phishing email. The scammers sending these emails are impersonating Professor Mendelson of the Department of Biological Sciences. Below is an example of such an email. For privacy purposes, we removed the To field.

 

From: Majoro Diarra Stanley <majorodstanley@gmail.com>

Date: Wed, Oct 27, 2021 at 6:07 PM

Subject: REMOTE JOB OFFER

To:



The services of a student administrative assistant is urgently required to work part-time in Mendelson Laboratory and get paid $300 weekly. Tasks will be carried out remotely and work time is 7 hours/week.

If interested, send a copy of your updated resume and a functional whatsapp number to Mendelson Laboratory via this email address to proceed with the job description/responsibilities.

 

Sincerely

Tamra Mendelson

Professor, Biological Sciences

Department of Biological Sciences

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Office: Biological Sciences 426

Lab: Mendelson Lab BS 402/427/428

Please note that the Biological Sciences Department or Professor Mendelson did not send this message. Three visible red flags in this email are:

  1. The From address is not a UMBC email. If the Biological Sciences Department or Prof. Mendelson were sending this email, the From address would have been a UMBC email address. However, it was sent from <majorodstanley@gmail.com>, which is not a UMBC affiliate. Please note that it could have been spoofed, even if it appears to originate from a UMBC email. Therefore, always check with DoIT(security@umbc.edu) or email/contact the impersonated person on a completely different email when you see a conflict in the address.

  2. Whatsapp number.  A lot of scammers will ask for your WhatsApp number. If their number gets reported, they could easily create a new one. The same can be said for an email address; however, if their email is blocked, they will lose responses from other phishing email recipients. If you ever receive a job offer asking for a WhatsApp number or a phone number in general,  BE SUSPICIOUS!

  3. The email template. This template is very common. After a quick Google search, we found a few Job scams articles with the same template. So if you are ever in doubt, Google it! UMBC will not use a known phishing template to offer you a job opportunity.


For more information about phishing, visit:https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=98136.


If you have received any message similar to the one listed above, please forward it with its headers tosecurity@umbc.edu. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.


______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Receive any suspicious emails?

Forward it to security@umbc.edu along with the email headers. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.


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