As a new school year begins, scammers attempt to gain access to student’s personal information by sending out mass messages to student email accounts, Josh McCune, director of Security Intelligence and Operations Center at Kansas State, said.
McCune said this method of scamming, also known as phishing, has deceived many K-State students, compromising their email accounts.
“Phishing refers to any attempt at social engineering to manipulate somebody into giving up secret information,” McCune said.
The main reason why students are affected by phishing scams is because they haven’t been warned about them, McCune said.
Summer Sperke, a sophomore in communications, personally encountered a phishing scam.
“I got this email saying my Outlook was compromised,” Sperke said. “I was super confused. I remember I texted my friends and they all told me it was a scam.”
Sperke said she would have fallen for the phishing without her friends’ advice.
When scammers get student login information, they can use those students’ email accounts to send more scams to other students, McCune said.
“If we identify an account as compromised, we will immediately change the password and turn that over to the help desk, where they will go through and contact the user and validate their identity,” McCune said.
Lydia Gerstner, a freshman in interior design, said she is worried about distinguishing between a phishing scam and a real email from K-State.
“Honestly, if it looked pretty legit, I feel like I would fall for a scam and I feel like other college students would as well,” Gerstner said.
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