University inboxes have been cluttered recently with fraudulent e-mails claiming to be from banks and requesting from recipients personal identification information, such as bank account and credit card numbers.
A warning was sent to students Wednesday in the weekly Connections e-mail, distributed by the Vice President for Student Affairs' Office.
"Please be aware that banks and other financial institutions are highly unlikely to request sensitive information from you in an e-mail," the warning said.
Shirley Payne, University director for security coordination and policy, said it is vital to improve online security awareness, as e-mails such as the bank hoaxes are becoming increasingly common.
"The bottom line is, when you receive unsolicited e-mail that's requesting personal information, you should get really suspicious," Payne said.
She advised students to use the same common sense in cyberspace as they would in the physical world.
"If someone walks up to you, even if they're wearing a Wachovia shirt, and asks to verify your credit card number, you're not going to give it to them," Payne said.
Whenever a student provides his or her e-mail address to a Web site, they are at risk for spam, said Chris Husser, technology coordinator for student activities.
"When you enter your e-mail address in a Web site, companies collect e-mail addresses and send them to spammers," Husser said.
Spammers also have other means of obtaining e-mail addresses. Husser said with a system called harvesting, spammers can gather posted e-mail addresses from Web sites, often without the address owner taking any action.
There are ways to avoid spam, however. Husser suggested that students designate an e-mail account that is intended for spam.
"Enter in an e-mail address on sites that you don't use," he said. "By not giving my Virginia mail account, I avoid spam."
Some students said the letters purporting to be from financial institutions are convincing.
"I didn't know what the bank e-mails were until I read Connections," said first-year Engineering student Lindsey McGuire. "The e-mails are really official, with fancy logos and all. I'm happy I never entered in my personal information in the sites and that all my money is intact."
Husser said ITC has established spam filters on Web Mail. By adjusting spam filtering settings, students can choose how sensitive their accounts will be to potential spam.
But Payne said the messages posing as bank statements can be difficult to identify since they contain no unusual words.
"It's hard to trap those kinds of things because determining whether it's legitimate or not, it's hard to program that," Payne said.
She suggested students visit www.antiphishing.org for a comprehensive list of ways to avoid scams.
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