With COVID-19 causing many to shop online instead of in person, many scamming websites have appeared selling fake products. The Better Business Bureau created a list of tips for shopping online safely.

• Make sure you know who you are dealing with. Check the spelling and the domain names, then google the website to see if the site has had any complaints against it.

• Scam websites usually have poor grammar and spelling, very little information, and capital letters in the middle of sentences.

• Make sure the website is using https:// at the beginning. A trusted website will have a secure domain so that your information is safe. Make sure to check the address bar for a “not secure” message as that is another red flag.

• If at all possible try to find the age of the website to see if it was recently established. Many malicious actors establish new websites in response to current events.

• Check the website's ‘about me’ and ‘contact us’ links, as many malicious actors will not take the time to fabricate a history for the brand such as you would see on a legitimate website.

• Check for the website's privacy policy to understand what personal information is being requested. If there isn’t a privacy policy that is a big red flag.

• If you receive a phishing email from a malicious actor, the Better Business Bureau says that they are usually without personalization. They say legitimate companies will usually refer to the customer by name, while malicious actors might not.

• Research the business first to make sure it is legitimate before giving them any of your personal and/or financial information.

• If the deal feels too good to be true then it probably is too good to be true.

• The Better Business Bureau recommends using a credit card when purchasing any product or service through a website. If your transaction is protected by the Fair Credit Billing Act, and you receive a defective product or it doesn’t arrive at all, you can dispute the charge and temporarily hold the payment while the credit company investigates them.

For more information, please check out: 

https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22474-bbb-warning-be-careful-purchasing-from-unknown-websites-during-covid-19

https://www.bbb.org/article/tips/14040-bbb-tip-smart-shopping-online

How do RT forms and authentication work? 

Scammers are always inventing new ways to exploit people. However, some of the basic tactics don’t change much. The Cybercrime Support Network (CSN), in partnership with Google, has set up the ScamSpotter web site (https://scamspotter.org/) . Scam Spotter lists Three Golden Rules for spotting a scam.

1. Slow Down: If any organization is rushing you to act fast, this is a red flag. Take your time to get more information. Do not rush.

2. Spot check: Utilize the internet, search for that organization online. If you get unexpected calls, unhang up, then search to verify the phone number.

3. Stop, Don’t Send. Scammers are always demanding payment on the spot, A trustworthy organization would not ask you to send your credit card over texts, phone calls or emails. Scammers love gift cards. Do not send any gift cards to anyone, who you have not verified or know.

If you receive email and are not sure whether it’s a scam, please send  the complete headers to security@umbc.edu.   The UMBC guide to displaying complete email headers can be found at:

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970 

Source: https://scamspotter.org/scams

The Federal Trade Commission warns of a phishing email scam aimed at college students. The malicious actor sends emails out claiming to be from the Financial Department of the student’s university. The email tells readers to click on the provided URL to get messages about their economic stimulus check. Once readers click on the URL it will require a university login to proceed.

These emails are phishing scams and once the URL is clicked on, the reader is either giving the malicious actors their personal information or even allowing malware to be installed onto their devices.

To help spot and avoid scams similar to the one above:

• If you have concerns about an email, look up a phone number or website of the sender/department that the email is claiming to be from. This helps to confirm you are calling someone who is real and not a malicious actor.  If there is no contact information, it very likely is a scam.

• Look out for bad grammar and spelling as this can be a tip-off that the email might be from a malicious actor. 

• Look out for wrong department names. For example the article found that one version of this phishing email claimed to be from the Financial Dept instead of the Financial Aid Department.  

• If you do receive any email that you suspect is a scam, please do not click on any URL or reply. Either of those actions confirms to the sender that your email address is valid. Please forward the message (with the email headers) to security@umbc.edu and delete the message.
  
  

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970

UMBC’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship:

https://financialaid.umbc.edu/

For more information, please check out:

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2020/05/covid-19-scams-targeting-college-students

As the global health crisis continues, many organizations are making the decision to continue remote work into the summer, and some are even hiring new employees remotely. Malicious actors are also still working and are capitalizing on uncertainty and preoccupation with other challenges. One of their most common goals is to obtain private information, such as passwords, personally identifiable information like social security numbers, or internal business decisions, all of which can be sold on the dark web or used in future scams targeting both individuals and organizations.  Whether you are already teleworking or simply want to be prepared for any opportunities that may arise, familiarize yourself with these simple tips to keep you, your devices, and your organization safe in the virtual workspace.

•  Read and follow your organization’s policies on telecommunications and telework. Know what you are and are not allowed to access from your personal devices.

•  Secure your Internet connection. Use a unique password for your home Wi-Fi and avoid accessing private information over public connections.

•  Lock your devices. Use a unique password, facial recognition, etc. to ensure that others cannot access private information through your phone or computer.

•  Keep your devices up to date. Update regularly or enable automatic updates to get the latest security patches as quickly as possible.

•  Use any additional security tools your organization provides. For example, UMBC offers access to the GlobalProtect VPN for secure remote connection to the campus network, and Duo Two-Factor Authentication to help prevent unauthorized logins to your UMBC account.

UMBC DoIT Security continues to receive reports of malicious emails claiming to offer part time job opportunities to UMBC students. 

From: Charlotte Oliver <charlotteoli26900@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, May 30, 2020 at 10:55

Subject: UMBC STUDENT PART TIME JOB OPPORTUNITY

Dear Student,

 

We got your contact through your school database and I'm happy to inform you that our reputable company Cisco Systems Inc® is currently running a student empowerment program. This program is to help devoted and hardworking students secure a part time job which does not deter them from doing any other, you just need a few hours to do this weekly and with an attractive weekly wages.

 

KINDLY EMAIL BACK WITH YOUR  (RESUME) PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER IF INTERESTED IN THIS JOB POSITION.

 

Best Regards,

 

Charlotte Oliver

HR Manager/Consultant

Cisco Systems Inc®

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS PHISHING EMAIL!

This phishing campaign is designed to collect students’ personal information. A reply confirms that your account is active and could lead to more spam. Additionally, if you provide your alternate email address and phone number as requested, you could be vulnerable to phone and text message scams in addition to being pressured by the fake employers for more personal information.

This job scam is similar to a COVID-19 themed variant reported in early May. While the message and subject of the emails have changed, the basic premise has not. See the original post at https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?id=92997.

During the  COVID-19, unemployment numbers have been rising and more people are looking for work. Some people have unknowingly gotten involved in breaking the law. According to the article from Idaho News 6 linked below, police found thousands of dollars worth of stolen merchandise in a garage belonging to a homeowner who thought he was renting space to people  working on a reshipping job.

The article warns that malicious actors post legitimate looking “work from home” help wanted or job openings on places like social media, message boards and even job posting sites. These ads will claim the work will be easy, pays big, and can be done from home. The malicious actor uses stolen credit cards to purchase goods and has the victim reship the items. In fact, the malicious actor is using the victim as part of a money laundering operation.

The article encourages readers to stay safe while job searching, to make sure that the employer has a readily available phone number for human resources, and has a company website. Scammers on the other hand usually will communicate through email or messenger only and are very secretive about the work, their business, and what the employee will be doing. The article also warns against paying upfront fees since malicious actors will often ask for fees for background checks or other pre-employment checks.

For more information, please check out:

https://www.kivitv.com/news/bbb-watch-for-work-from-home-scams

As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Saturday, May 23rd and Thursday, May 28th.  While many of the systems will be patched without any service disruption, there are some systems which require the downtime of key services.  The schedule below outlines which key services will be offline and for how long.

Saturday, 05/23/2020 between 9am and 11am(most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):

• myUMBC lite page will be up resulting in reduced myUMBC functionality
• Wiki will be unavailable
• The sites (wordpress) web hosting environment will be unreachable

Thursday, 05/28/2020 between 4pm and 10pm (most systems will only be down for a short period during this time): 

• Between 4pm and 5:30pm only: LDAP-Master and Webadmin will be taken down for system maintenance.  During this time account creations and password changes will be unavailable.  Account authentication and logins will not be affected.
• Access to Cyrus and UMBC Webmail (accounts not migrated to UMBC Gmail)
• All mail will be queued up and delivered after the server is patched
• All HFS (user) servers will be offline
• Between 9:15pm and 10pm only: Certain software licenses will be unavailable (autodesk, cadence, idl, schrodinger, xilinx, mathematica). 
• Between 9:15pm and 10pm only: The web hosting environments (virthost) will be partially unavailable (pages will be available but any database calls will not work)

Please let us know if you have any concerns or questions.

Thanks!

Tim Champ

Manager of Unix Infrastructure

UMBC DoIT