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Tag: spam

Blocks cause problems with delivery of email

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

Over the last month, K-Staters have experienced an increase in blocked email from K-State to several email service providers.  Typically the user will be notified immediately that the email did not go through, however in some instances you might not learn of the block for several days. NOTE: Blocked email is not delivered.

K-Staters who have their eID set to forward to an address that is being blocked are starting to be removed from K-State LISTSERV lists, which is an automatic function within the listservs. Reasons that K-State finds itself on blocked lists include: Continue reading “Blocks cause problems with delivery of email” →

Phishing scams + stolen passwords = problems for everyone

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

Criminals seem to be working overtime in their efforts to steal eID passwords, which is no surprise since their efforts are paying dividends: Since July 18, 77 K-Staters have been tricked into giving away their eID passwords via phishing scam e-mails! The count since January 1, 2010, is 255 K-Staters!

When stolen e-mail accounts are used to send massive amounts of spam to recipients all over the world, other e-mail service providers view K-State as a source of spam and start blocking ALL e-mail from K-State by putting us on their “spam block-list.” Continue reading “Phishing scams + stolen passwords = problems for everyone” →

Why recent malicious e-mails with attachments were so effective

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

Over the past month, K-State was hit by three different attacks using scam e-mails that contained malicious attachments. In the first round, which started July 13, more than 100 K-Staters were tricked into opening the attachments, resulting in at least 113 infected campus computers.

The compromised computers were turned into spam e-mail servers that sent thousands of the same malicious e-mails to people all over campus and the world. In fact, the malware used address books from local e-mail clients on the infected computers to harvest the e-mail addresses it used, which explains why so many people got so many copies at K-State.

Continue reading “Why recent malicious e-mails with attachments were so effective” →

Q/A: How to tell if e-mail is legitimate or scam?

Posted on by Betsy Edwards

How can I tell if e-mail is legitimate or a spam or scam?

First, any e-mail asking for a password or other security data is almost certainly a scam.  Don’t ever respond to that type of e-mail; just delete it.

Second, go to K-State’s IT security blog at threats.itsecurity.k-state.edu and search for a few keywords from the e-mail’s subject line.

Continue reading “Q/A: How to tell if e-mail is legitimate or scam?” →

SMTP block starts Dec. 20 on residence hall and campus wireless networks

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

On Saturday, Dec. 20, K-State will start blocking the SMTP e-mail protocol on the residence-hall networks and the campus wireless network. This is necessary in order to intercept the large numbers of spam e-mails sent by compromised computers on those network segments and to help keep K-State off spam block lists. Continue reading “SMTP block starts Dec. 20 on residence hall and campus wireless networks” →

Don’t fall for “Antivirus 2008 XP” rogue software!

Posted on by Harvard Townsend (harv@ksu.edu)

In the last week, four computers in one K-State department were compromised and used to send massive amounts of spam to recipients all over the world. Likewise, I was contacted by a K-State employee who had warning messages pop up repeatedly on her home computer telling her the computer was infected and she needed to purchase special software to fix it. The common denominator in all five cases is rogue anti-spyware software called “Antivirus 2008 XP” (aka “Antivirus XP 2008”) that’s making the rounds on the Internet. Continue reading “Don’t fall for “Antivirus 2008 XP” rogue software!” →