March 28, 2024

Phishing Emails Targeting Faculty and Staff

The IT Security Office has identified several phishing emails targeting UMW faculty and staff. These messages appear to come from our faculty and staff, but they are in fact forgeries, often using a variation of the person’s name. All of the forged emails are coming from Gmail accounts. They are not legitimate.

Subjects for these emails include “Follow Up” or “Following Up”, and the body has been something simple, like “Are you available?” These initial messages are innocuous by design, and are intended to initiate a dialog with you. At some point, a request for a credit card number, a wire transfer, or some other nefarious action will follow.

Our SPAM filters have been catching many of these messages, but some continue to get through for delivery. We ask that you be diligent and pay attention to the sending name and address of the emails you receive, and look for unusual variations on the name of the sender. If you are suspicious about the legitimacy of an email, do not respond. Please forward it to abuse@umw.edu.