Important Reminder About Email-based Phishing Attempts

Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students:

Over the past week, we have observed an increase in e-mail-based phishing attacks designed to solicit account ID and password information from members of the Johns Hopkins community.

Phishing (pronounced "fishing") is a form of identity theft that attempts to trick people into revealing personal or financial information online. Phishers use phony Web sites or e-mail messages that appear to be from trusted businesses and brands in order to steal personal information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers or Social Security numbers.

The messages can be hard to recognize as fake, because they appear to come from known sources. The more familiar a message looks, the more susceptible people may be to performing actions suggested in the message.

Recent phishing messages received at Johns Hopkins claim to originate from a "JHU Support Team" or "Webmaster" or from another source inside Johns Hopkins. The subject lines say, "Verify your JHMI EDU account" or "Confirm Your Account" and include a request to respond with information such as username, password and date of birth.

Do NOT respond to e-mail messages that ask you to provide or verify your personal information. Do NOT follow any directions contained in such messages.

Financial institutions and other legitimate businesses -- including Johns Hopkins -- generally will not send e-mail messages requesting that type of information. Furthermore, legitimate internal Johns Hopkins messages about access to IT resources should provide contact information for you to use to get in touch with someone if you have questions. They would also have specific information regarding access. Information technology departments within Johns Hopkins would provide as much notice as possible about outages or changes to your account.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Ben Reynolds

Director, Enterprise Messaging

Information Technology@Johns Hopkins

breynolds@jhmi.edu

More Information:

Go to these Web pages:

Anti-Phishing Working Group: http://www.antiphishing.org/

Federal Trade Commission Consumer Alert:  http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt127.shtm