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Fraudulent E-mail Continues to Target University Community

Here is a copy of e-mail sent to the university community in response to another wave of "phishing" e-mails, ostensibly from the Office of Information Technology (OIT).


Never give your university password to anyone, especially in response to an unsolicited e-mail message. A legitimate University of Maryland message will never make such a request.

University e-mail users (along with users at many other universities) continue to receive fraudulent messages. These messages, impersonating university officials or referencing university services, are being sent in an attempt to obtain passwords and other personal information. A legitimate university message would have no reason to make such a request.

  • Do not respond to these messages as this action confirms that the message was sent to a valid address. Delete the message.
  • Never provide personal information over the Internet (or telephone) unless you initiated the conversation and there is a legitimate reason to provide such information.
  • If you responded to one of these messages with your password, change your password IMMEDIATELY at the password.umd.edu Web site. In addition, please contact the OIT Help Desk at one of the numbers below.

Here is a link to another OIT Help Desk web page on this issue, Beware Of Password Phishing E-mail, posted in March 2008. It contains another statement by the OIT Security Office, as well as some examples of "phishing" e-mails, and links to web sites which discuss the matter.

If you have any questions about this or other IT issues, please contact the OIT Help Desk.

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