Date: August 9, 2022
From: +(213)205-5089
The following is part of an example of what a UChicago user saw and responded to the initial scammer message.
We have currently observed some scam campaigns through phone text (i.e. smishing) where the attacker tries to impersonate the leaders throughout the university such as the one above. In general, there are multiple ways to determine if a text is a scam, here are some of them –
- The request is irrelevant to you.
- The text message contains misspellings or poor grammar.
- The message’s tone is urgent and requests your immediate action.
- The text offers a fake refund.
- The scam offers random prizes, that are unexpected.
- The source of the text is unidentified
Be cautious and vigilant to such text messages. Please provide these text messages via screenshots to the Information Security team at secuity@uchicago.edu <mailto:security@uchicago.edu>. This will help us in learning these attempts and secure the university on a large scale. Additionally, visit this site How To Recognize and Report Spam Text Messages to see how these scam text messages can be reported as per Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice.