What happened?Earlier today an employee in an administrative office received a very targeted phishing email. The email subject line was “Fitnyc Payroll/Benefits Plan On October 5, 2023 at 02:12:42 PM” and claimed to be from FIT’s Human Resources Department. This email was certainly a phish and had a malicious attachment. The subject line included a unique timestamp […]
What is happening?We emailed you back in September about phishing emails that purport to come from Best Buy and Geek Squad. Many of you have reported them as phish to Google and we want to thank you for being proactive. Marking these emails as phish not only strengthens the Google filters but also sends us […]
What happened? Last week we emailed you that several SUNY campuses, including FIT, have received phishing emails from other legitimate SUNY campus accounts that have been misused to send phishes. Yesterday we received a report of a student at a SUNY college who received a call from (844) 376-9163. The robo call claimed to be […]
What happened? We have received several reports of FIT users getting fake subscription renewal emails from reputable companies, like Norton AntiVirus and McAfee. Scammers will often try to take advantage of the new year, when email inboxes are full of promotions, receipts, and renewal notifications, hoping to catch the recipients off guard. We would like […]
We received a report of an FIT alumnus who received a text message from someone pretending to a high level executive at FIT. We want to alert you of the dangers of smishing (text message phishing) and to remind you that official college communication is never sent in the form of a text message.“SMS” phishing […]
We have received reports of some FIT employees receiving emails with blank subject lines or one character subject lines with no content in the body of the email. Cybersecurity researchers have reported that blank, unsolicited emails are often an early sign of a potential future phishing attack. Cyber gangs will often put feelers out to […]
What happened?Over the weekend and this morning, FIT (and many of our peer SUNY campuses) received emails from several senders all purporting to represent the IRS, with a subject line of “Recalculating Your Tax Refund Payment.” The emails contained a click button that brings users to a site that looks like an IRS.gov site, but […]
What happened?An advisory has just been released by one the Higher Education cybersecurity communication groups alerting us to two phishing campaigns targeting students using the lure of the Pell Grant. The first one attempts to contact students by text message, a form of phishing called “SMiShing,” congratulating them on their acceptance into the Pell Grant Award […]
What happened?We have just been made aware that some FIT employees and students have received three different phishing emails appearing with the subject lines “You have 5 new held messages 12/17/2020″, “Mailbox quota notification for,” and “Notice: Account Update.” All three emails pretended to be related to Office 365 and, in some cases, were spoofing […]
What happened?The FBI is investigating widespread cybercriminal activity targeting college and university students via spear phishing. Spear phishing, in contrast to traditional phishing, involves highly targeted phishing emails sent to a specific group of individuals—in this case, students with federal student loans. In these more sophisticated phishing attacks, the bad actor will contact the student […]