We would like to make students aware of two common email scams and to remind you that email is by its nature insecure, and scammers can forge sender addresses and message contents, just as scammers can do the same forgery with postal mail.

The first common scam is a checking scam.  The scammer will send you an email looking for ‘personal assistant’ or ‘work at home’ type services.  Once you are hooked into the scam, they will mail you one or more checks for a significant amount of money.  They then ask you to wire or send the extra money back to them.  After 14 days, your bank bounces the bad checks, and you are then out all of the money that you sent to the scammers.

The second common scam are password phishing scams.  The attacker will send you an email that makes claims about closing your mailbox, that your mailbox needs to be upgraded, or that your mailbox has a security problem.  They then provide a link to click on to fix the claimed problem.  Once you click on the link, you usually get a web site that looks similar to a campus web page, asking for your username and password.  UMKC will not send out emails asking you to click on a link and enter a password in order to fix your mailbox.  If there is an actual problem with your mailbox, we will reset your password for you, or temporarily disable logons for your mailbox until you call the UMKC Call Center.  If you receive emails from Blackboard or any campus web site, make sure when you click on the link, that the web address ends with umkc.edu, umsystem.edu, or missouri.edu before entering your password.

If at any time you have a problem with your account, or have questions on a suspicious email, you can contact the UMKC Call Center.  Contact information for the Call Center is available at:  http://www.umkc.edu/IS/support/ 

More information on phishing, and what to watch out for, is available at:  https://www.umsystem.edu/makeitsafe/phishing. 

Additional security awareness information is available at:  https://www.umsystem.edu/makeitsafe/