Phishing

Many colleges and universities have recently been the target of e-mail phishing scams which attempt to trick students, faculty and staff into giving away personal information that can be used to access e-mail and personal bank accounts. These scams typically contain e-mail subjects such as, "VERIFY YOUR ACCOUNT" or "Confirm Your E-Mail Address," and may ask you to reply to the message via email or phone with some of the following information:

• Username
• Password
• Account number
• Birth date
• Credit card expiration date
• Credit card pin
  

Universities and financial institutions never ask for personal account information via e-mail. In addition, the UMKC Call Center will never ask for your password via e-mail. Furthermore, any email communication or unsolicited web form asking for this type of information should be closed and deleted.

In particular reference to scams targeting UMKC:

	These scams typically contain e-mail subjects such as, "VERIFY YOUR ACCOUNT" or "Confirm Your E-Mail Address," and may ask you to reply to the message with the following information: Your UMKC SSO Username Your UMKC Password Your Birth Date The UMKC Call Center will never ask you to send your password through e-mail. If you receive an e-mail that asks you to send your password to a UMKC department or individual, you should delete the message immediately. UMKC Information Services does send notices of account closure to student, faculty and staff accounts when their enrollment or employment with UMKC has ended. These notices will never request any personally identifiable information. However, we do request that recipients of closure notifications who believe they have received the notice in error respond to us via e-mail to report their current status or to provide a reason to retain the account.

It is a wise practice to remember that e-mail is, in general, an insecure communication medium. Just as the post office can't verify that the return address on an envelope is the actual address of the sender, e-mail systems can't verify that the sender in the "From:" line is the actual sender of a message. Unless you are explicitly expecting a message from a sender, you should be aware of the insecurities that exist regarding e-mail.

If you would like to report suspected phishing attempts to the UMKC Exchange administrators you may do so by following these instructions.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding e-mail, please contact the UMKC IS Call Center at 816-235-2000.