Recently, the Division of Information Technology(DoIT) received multiple reports of job phishing emails. The scammers sending these emails are impersonating Professor Alan Sherman in the Computer Science Department. Below is an example of the email. For privacy purposes, we removed the To field.
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From: Brandy Nicole <nbrandy609@gmail.com> Date: Wed, Jul 6, 2022 at 3:37 PM Subject: UMBC PART TIME JOB OPPORTUNITY To:
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Office of the Department of Computer Science urgently needs the services of students to work remotely as research assistants and get paid $300 weekly. The position is served remotely and assignments can be carried out in your leisure time. The position is open to students from any department of the institution UMBC. To proceed with the application process, contact Professor Alan Sherman now at (408) 212-0240 via text message stating your full name, email address, year of study, and department to receive the job description and further application requirements.
Best Regards,
Professor Alan Sherman Department: Computer Science Information Technology & Engineering, Room 224 (408) 212-0240 University of Maryland, Baltimore County |
Please note that Professor Sherman did not send these messages. Three visible red flags in these emails are:
The From address is not a UMBC email. In the example above, if the Computer Science Department or Prof. Sherman were sending this email, the From address would have been a UMBC email address. However, it was sent from <nbrandy609@gmail.com>, which is not a UMBC affiliate.
The sender’s name is Prof.Sherman’s name but Brandy Nicole. This is another giveaway that the professor did not send this email. Please note that the From address can be spoofed easily. It can even appear to originate from a UMBC email, though in this case the sender did not bother. Always check with DoIT(security@umbc.edu) or email/contact the impersonated person on a verifiable email address when you see a conflict in the email headers. You can look up UMBC faculty and staff email at https://www2.umbc.edu/search/directory.
Phone number. A lot of scammers will ask for your number. If their number gets reported, they could easily get a new one. In general, if you ever receive a job offer asking for your phone number or personal email address, BE SUSPICIOUS!
Request for response by phone text message. Why would someone send you a job offer in email and then want a text message in response? First, because your response gives them your phone number, name, standing (freshman, sophomore, etc.), and department. This provides a good basis for future identity theft. Second, because it takes the conversation out of the UMBC mail services, which makes it much more difficult to investigate if/when you report the scam.
The email template. This template is very common. After a quick Google search, we found three Job scam 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.
Think about it. If someone walked up to you on the street, showed you identification under two or three different names, and then made you this offer, would you take it?
If you have received any message similar to the one listed above, please forward it with its headers to security@umbc.edu. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.
For more information about phishing, visit:https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=98136.
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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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