Similar to other work from home phishing attempts targeting the UMBC community, this one follows the pattern. A malicious actor who claims to be from a company, in this case Cisco, offers the victim a job. This email also shows the subject line of “WORK FROM HOME” in all caps. An example of this phishing email can be seen below:
From: steve mendez <stevemendez044@gmail.com> Date: Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 2:18 PM Subject: WORK FROM HOME To: <@umbc.edu> Cisco Systems Inc® is offering you a chance to secure a part time job. Kindly reply back with your alternate email address for more information.
Kind Regards, steve mendezHR Manager/Consultant Cisco Systems Inc® |
Past phishing emails attempts like this one ask the victim to reply with their personal (non-UMBC) email. Then the malicious actor would ask for more personal information such as the phone number, address, current job, and even the birthdate of the victim.
After the victim responds, they would receive another email. This email would be confirming that the victim got the job and that the scammer would be sending the first paycheck. In scams similar to this one the scammer has been known to text victims too.
If you do receive this or a similar scam, please DO NOT respond any further or click on any URLs. If you have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.
Whether or not you responded to the scam or not, please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers if you receive a text message from the malicious actor.
How do I forward full email headers?
https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970
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