Phishing Warning: Fake Student Job Offers and Research Opportunities

Uconn’s ISO wishes to bring to your attention an ongoing phishing scam involving Job Offers and Research Opportunities. Please review the examples towards the end of this article and note the distinctions between real and fake opportunities.

Threat Actors are currently utilizing a phishing scam involving fake job and internship offers. Please be extra cautious when reviewing emails of this nature.

Quick Summary

Threat actors will use automated or compromised email accounts to solicit personal information from UConn Students. Please ensure that opportunities you pursue come from legitimate sources like Handshake or LinkedIn, or that the sender of the email is UConn based (engineering@uconn.edu for example) entity. Additionally, look out for “too good to be true” offers.

Do not click on any untrusted links or fill out any forms with personal information. Note also, threat actors may use compromised student or faculty accounts to target our users.

This article will review some important discussions, go over some tips for identifying these scams, as well as review some examples. It is imperative for our students to know that these types of scams exist so they can watch out for them.

If you are unsure of the validity of an email, or suspect a possible phishing attempt, please create a ticket with the security office, and we can clear it up for you.

Important Discussion

A common practice by threat actors is the use of compromised accounts to illicit further information from individuals in an organization. If you are a student at UConn, it is imperative to remain vigilant for fraudulent emails, especially from other individuals at UConn.

While there is no evidence to suggest new students are being targeted specifically by scammers, they are certainly the most vulnerable. New students must understand the limitations of the Security team. Although precautions are in place to prevent incidents, and remediate affected accounts, there is very little that can be done once information is given away. For that reason, students must assume zero trust with all communications and use contextual clues and common sense to protect themselves.

The UConn ISO has observed a pattern of email based phishing attempts on our students. These emails typically include the prospect of a lucrative “job offer” or “research opportunity” but have been seen branded in other ways as well. These emails typically come from another user at UConn, giving the appearance of legitimate opportunity; unfortunately, the senders are usually compromised user accounts at UConn, or random email domains.

Tips for Identifying Scams:

University jobs are advertised and offered through this site: https://studentjobs.uconn.edu/

o Be skeptical of all offers received through email, and note the sender, subject, and any possible malicious attachments. NEVER open attachments from an unknown sender.

Messages sent from outside of Uconn should be reviewed with extra skepticism, but be aware that all communication channels are possible vectors for phishing attacks

Be skeptical of offers that require switching to personal email.

o A common practice by threat actors is to encourage students to communicate via an outside channel for “future correspondence about the offer.”

o UConn Security has gone through great lengths to try and secure our email infrastructure, and there are many protections in place for our users. Unfortunately, we cannot extend these same protections to personal accounts. In general, if the offer was sent to your Uconn email, there should be no need to use anything but that for preliminary communication.

Real Opportunities can come through email!

o Not every internship/job opportunity received via email is fake! engineering@uconn.edu is constantly sending out emails to engineering students advertising opportunities

Key Tip: Use your discretion. Offers that sound too good to be true frequently are.

Examples:

Always check the sender of an email. Note that @uconn.edu email are used by some departments to inform students, and can be trusted

This example contains verifiable contact information in addition to event particulars. This is an example of a trusted email.

Emails will usually address their target audience! Be skeptical of emails that do not appear to pertain to you or your studies.

Emails containing points of contact inside UConn can also be considered more trustworthy!

Note this was not sent via department email, but it still appears to pertain to the “COE Students” demographic.

A formal signature and additional points of contact reinforce the validity of this sample.

Note how this email includes varying grammar and a sketchy link. Never interact with an email like this!

This message was sent from
piz-zagh[.]com, an unknown domain. This is an example of a phishing email and should not be interacted with!

Note how this scammer includes an outside point of contact. Individuals should never communicate with unknown senders.

It is common for scammers to impersonate our respected professors. In this instance, the scammer even went as far as creating a fake gmail to impersonate Dr. Mandoiu. Never send any personal information to an unknown Gmail account.

To Summarize: