Phishing attacks on Ball State accounts continue

A phishing attack on Ball State e-mail accounts could still be a threat to its users. University Computing Services has worked in clearing damaged computers, but there were faculty and students were still receiving bogus e-mails on Friday.

A few employees' accounts were compromised since the e-mail's detection Tuesday night Deb Howell, senior systems security communications manager, said. However, UCS is working to clear infected accounts and filter out any phishing spam sent to the university and urges students, faculty and staff to not reply to any unsolicited requests of confidential information.

"Never give out your password or other personal information for any reason. We will never ask," Howell said in an e-mail.

University Computing Services sent an e-mail to all campus accounts Wednesday, alerting students, faculty and staff about a malicious message posing as a security directive to e-mail account holders. Phishing is the term used to describe an attempt to obtain passwords or other personal information from e-mail users, often by getting them to click on a link that installs "malware," or malicious software. In some attacks, the victim's computer is subverted to become part of a network that sends blasts of e-mails without users' knowledge.

The bogus e-mail sent to Ball State users claims to be from the school's "Webmail Administrator" and urges the user to click on a link.

"We saw that the [infected] computer was sending lots and lots of emails, and we started working to prevent it," she said.

The malware installs when a victim clicks on a link in the bogus e-mail compromises the user's computer if the person does not have an updated antivirus program, Howell said. The malware includes a key-logging feature that captures passwords and other information as it is entered by the user.

"A key-logger is a type of malicious software. Once it is installed on a computer it records keystrokes. It does this by monitoring a user's input and keeping a log of all keys that are pressed," Howell said. "Individuals infected are meeting with me today so we can clean the computers, and the university is making sure all systems on campus are clean."

A warning e-mail sent by Howell's office said people who receive the bogus message or other suspicious email should not respond or click on the link. The alert explained that university symbols used in the email to make it appear genuine were used illegally.

Howell said Ball State has had similar cases before, in which users were asked to provide their username and password, but UCS had not seen this kind of attack before.

"Until now hackers have not been able to mimic Ball State content as well as they have done on this phishing attempt," she said. "They have successfully tricked some individuals into clicking links or providing confidential information."

If the e-mail account became compromised on university equipment it is necessary to have the computer scanned for malicious software running on their computer. There are many forms of malicious software, including keyloggers. Keyloggers are often used to retrieve banking and other personal numbers, such as username and password.

For more info:
UCS suggests students go to their website, www.bsu.edu/security, to stay informed on the latest viruses, scams, hoaxes and spam.