The site is: umbc. edu. sunward-travel. com  (Spaces are inserted here in the site’s address to ensure that it will not show up as a link in your browser.)

The site’s SSL certificate, the thing responsible for the lock icon in your browser’s navigation bar, is valid through this summer until Sep 13, 2022. The time span suggests that it could be used for phishing attacks towards the end of the summer when people often take vacations, or during the start of classes when people are getting lots of email as the academic schedules get sorted out.  

The site name contains the text ‘umbc.edu’, though not as part of the UMBC domain.  If someone receives an email referencing this site, a quick glance can pick up on the ‘umbc’ and make the site seem legitimate.  It is not a UMBC site!

If you receive a message with a link to this site, please forward it to security@umbc.edu. 

DO NOT CLICK ON IT!

References:

Understanding Padlocks on Browsers

https://medium.com/xebia-engineering/understanding-padlocks-on-browsers-ba411e5b826

HTTPS and the Lock Icon

https://crypto.stanford.edu/cs142/lectures/24-https.pdf

Blackboard course shells for FA2022 were created on July 28, 2022.

The Ultra Course Preview setting is again enabled in FA2022 courses, which allows faculty to convert a new Original course to see what it looks like in Ultra. 

• Please review the release notes for the latest updates as well as feature parity charts -- more than 30 new updates were added over the last few months including points-based gradebook and rubrics, question banks, and more! 
• Learn more about What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning on August 1 or 11.
• Attend an Ultra Essentials training on August 16 and 17.
• Have a question about Ultra? Ask an Ultra Ambassador!

Ally, an accessibility tool, is also enabled in all course shells. Ally automatically scans uploaded and created course content, then performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Please review the Ally FAQs for more information about the accessibility indicators on course content and alternative formats.

For faculty who will be teaching hybrid or online, the instructional technology team would like to share several resources to support online course development and instruction.

1. Choose from our PIVOT Solo lessons to refresh or enhance your online teaching preparation. Five key topics cover course organization, active learning, community building, assessment, and supporting students. 
2. Explore our Panopto folder for a wide variety of recorded webinars on various instructional technologies available at UMBC.
3. Learn about the Quality Matters Impact program, a new initiative to formally recognize courses that meet Quality Matters standards and demonstrate exemplary online/hybrid course design.

• If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your Departmental Scheduling Coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically. 
• If you and your Department Scheduling Coordinator believe you are correctly assigned as the instructor of record in the SOC and you do not see your course shell in Blackboard, please submit a Request Tracker (RT) ticket via my.umbc.edu/help.
• If you need a Bb shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.

Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections may be split upon request by an RT ticket, which we recommend submitting at least one week before the semester starts, if not as soon as courses are created in Blackboard.

Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor of record makes them available.

From: CAMPUS JOBS <roger.nicholson911@gmail.com>

Date: Wed, Jul 20, 2022 at 5:05 PM

Subject: JOB OFFER

To:

The service of a student administrative assistant is urgently required to work part-time and get paid $315 weekly. Tasks will be carried out remotely and work time is 14 hours per week.

If interested, submit your updated resume, a google hangouts email address, and a functional whatsapp number to our Department of Biological Sciences via this email address to proceed.

Sincerely

Kathleen Hoffman, Ph.D.

Affiliate Professor, Biological Sciences

Professor, Mathematics and Statistics

Department of Biological Science

Office: MP434    

Please note that neither the Biological Sciences Department nor Professor Hoffman sent this message. Three visible red flags in this email are:

1. The From address is not a UMBC email address. If the Biological Sciences Department or Prof. Hoffman were sending this email, the From address would have been a UMBC email address. However, it was sent from <roger.nicholson911@gmail.com>, which is not a UMBC affiliate. Also, “roger.nicholson” is not the same as “Kathleen Hoffman”.  Please note that the From address can be 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.  For reference, use UMBC’s online directory at https://www2.umbc.edu/search/directory/advanced/

2. Whatsapp number.  A lot of scammers will ask for your WhatsApp number. If their number gets reported, they can easily get 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! Just copy-and-paste several sentences of the text into Google.  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.

Follow us on myUMBC:https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/itsecurity.

Recently, the Division of Information Technology(DoIT) has seen an increase in phishing attacks where items(docs, pdf, spreadsheets) are shared with the UMBC community. An example of such messages can be found below. For privacy purposes, the To field was removed.

From: Christine Bourne (via Google Drive) <drive-shares-dm-noreply@google.com>

Date: Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 6:39 PM

Subject: Item shared with you: "2022resource.pdf"

To: 

Christine Bourne shared an item Christine Bourne (bournec@mpsct.org) has shared the following item: 2022resource.pdf

Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

There is no ‘Christine Bourne’ in the UMBC directory (https://www2.umbc.edu/search/directory/advanced/) or otherwise associated with UMBC.  Most individuals who have reported this document do not know the sender. Whenever you receive messages like this, ask yourselves:

1. Was I expecting this document? Before receiving a document, you were most likely notified by the individual sending the document. If you were not expecting it, check with the sender if you know them personally. If you do not know the sender, report it to <security@umbc.edu>.

2. Do I know this email and name? Remember, names can be spoofed, and email addresses too! If you do not recognise the name or email,  forward the message to <security@umbc.edu> immediately. DO NOT OPEN IT!

3. Is there any online information about this account? By doing a quick Google search, we can see that <bournec@mpsct.org> doesn’t belong to Christine Bourne. If you see a discrepancy like this,  forward the message to <security@umbc.edu> immediately,  DO NOT OPEN IT!

These are not novel attacks, below are some examples of previously reported campaigns:

• 145_001.pdf shared by <tmusgrave@slusd.us> 

• NEW COVID-19 PROTOCOLS.docx shared by <helptool05@gmail.com>

• DC.docx shared by <helpd8708@gmail.com>

• Departmental distribution list.docx <ithelpdesko400@gmail.com>

• Departmental distribution list.docx <ithelpdesko4000@gmail.com>

• Departmental distribution list.docx <ithelppdesk007@gmail.com>

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at security@umbc.edu.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

Follow us on myUMBC:https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/itsecurity

 Recently, the Division of Information Technology(DoIT) received multiple reports of job phishing emails from a Gmail account. The phishers are pretending to offer an Administrative Assistant job. Below is an example of the email. For privacy purposes, we removed the To field.

THIS JOB OFFER IS NOT REAL! There is no current employee at UMBC named Stacy Dean. 

If you respond to this message, they will likely send you a check (or a picture of a check) to deposit. DO NOT DEPOSIT THE CHECK! If you have shared any banking information, CONTACT YOUR BANK IMMEDIATELY!

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.

If you need further assistance, please contact us at security@umbc.edu.

__________________________________________________________

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.

Follow us on myUMBC:https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/itsecurity.