More Phishing

As you know, phishing e-mails are an attempt to get important information--passwords, credit card numbers, etc--by making you think that they're legitimate requests for information.

We've gotten calls today that a number of you have received emails resembling the following:

From: IASTATE.EDU [mailto:webteam@iastate.edu] Sent: Monday, July 30, 2012 10:52 PM Subject: IASTATE.EDU Upgrade your webmail

Dear Valued Customer,

You have been instructed by IASTATE.EDU service to upgrade your IASTATE.EDU Mail account to version 3GB Unlimited.

Note, you may encounter problem in sending or receiving mails if your account has not been upgraded. To upgrade your webmail account, Please click on the link below to confirm your email account:

Followed by a link. If you received this email (or any suspicious email) look carefully. Though it contains the words Iowa State University, the link goes to a .com site, not an iastate.edu site.

Other tip-offs for this particular phishing attempt

• Addressed to 'Valued Customers'
• Reference to IASTATE.EDU service rather than to ISU's ITS or EIT
• Not sent by an individual and doesn't contain specific contact information
• Talks about an 'upgrade' that has not been previously announced

Be aware of where links go. Remember too, sometimes links look legitimate, but that's actually just the text. To be sure, you can often position your mouse over the link without clicking to see where clicking will actually take you.