Two emails containing fraudulent links were sent to members of the Georgetown University community Nov. 5 and 6, according to a Nov. 6 email to community members.
One of the emails purported to be sent from the Office of the President, asking community members to nominate faculty for an award, while the other was sent to faculty and staff with an update to the staff appreciation and services award list. Both emails included phishing links — a type of deceptive link that attempts to steal personal or sensitive information — asking community members to sign in to a webpage to confirm their eligibility for an award.
University Information Services (UIS), the university’s technology department that sent the Nov. 6 warning to community members, said the two emails were fraudulent despite appearing to come from legitimate email addresses.
“University Information Services (UIS) has recently identified several phishing attempts (see email attempts at the bottom of this message) sent from compromised Georgetown University email accounts to our internal community,” UIS wrote in the email. “Unfortunately, phishing attempts continue to increase in sophistication, and even emails that appear to be sent from a legitimate Georgetown University email address could be phishing.”
The fraudulent Nov. 6 email from the Office of the President included a phishing link claiming to direct to a website for the President’s Awards for Distinguished Scholar-Teachers, for which the university annually solicits nominations. Some community members received a similar email the same day from Interim University President Robert M. Groves with slightly different language asking for nominations for the award that UIS did not say was fraudulent.
The email sent to faculty and staff Nov. 5 included a signature from Andrew Matthew, who is not a real university employee, according to a UIS webpage. The link fraudulently appeared to direct to an “eligibility portal” for staff appreciation and services awards.
UIS said anyone who clicked the phishing links should call UIS before 10 p.m. Thursday Nov. 6, or when the office opens at 7 a.m. Friday Nov. 7 to reset their credentials.
