All:

In the last two weeks, faculty and staff in the Volgenau School have been the targets for at least two phishing attacks.  The email appear to come from someone you know in VSE, such as Dean Ball, but come from a gmail or other outside address.  The email attacks are typically in a series leading up to an attempt to defraud the recipient:


1.       Email from a Mason person you know asking if you're around or on campus

2.       You reply

3.       Then an email saying that the purported sender is in a meeting and needs a favor - for you go to the store or something

4.       You agree, since it's someone you know (if you didn't notice it did NOT come from their GMU email)

5.       They then ask you to buy some high value Amazon (or other vendor) gift cards, to scrape off the code covers, and email them a photograph of the card back

Please watch your email carefully - this is one reason we ask everyone to use only their GMU email accounts (and to insist their students do the same). It's very easy to create a gmail.com, my.com, or yahoo.com account like Jonathan.Goldman[at]gmail.com  or jgoldman_GMU[at]yahoo.com and send email from those accounts.

If you receive one of those emails:

1.       Do not respond

2.       Forward it to ITS support at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> so they can confirm that it is an attack and identify all other recipients to notify them.

VSE is not the only target - there have been several recently - go to https://its.gmu.edu/phishing-alerts/ to see what you've missed.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Jonathan

==================================================================
   Jonathan Goldman                                      Volgenau School of Engineering
   Director, IT & Security                                          George Mason University
   (703) 993-3506                                                4400 University Dr. MSN 4A3
   fax  (703) 993-3977                                                  Fairfax, VA 22030-4444