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SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah staff is on alert for a scammer targeting employees in their homes.
University Chief Information Officer, Dan Bowden, said the university has been training staff to recognize spam in emails, so when suspicious calls starting coming through, employees didn’t fall for it.
"(Staff) have been contacting us and saying: Hey what's going on with this? Someone called and said they're from Microsoft, or someone called and said they are from the university help desk. Is this legitimate?” Bowden said.
He said there is an easy way to check.
"Just call the help desk back," Bowden advises. "There is no harm in hanging up on the individual and calling back. They understand the concern that our folks at the university have and will respect that."
Bowden says University employees have to be especially vigilant because so much of their information is public.
"People can pretty easily see who you are, what your role is at the university, what your job title is, they can guess how much money you might make.” Bowden said. “And from there it isn't hard to gather up information and start making targeted calls, which we refer to as spear fishing."
He says a common hacking trick today is to make information as familiar as possible so people are comfortable giving out information.
"The attackers have gotten more and more sophisticated at trying to make that message as familiar as possible."
He says if hackers can trick university staff into giving up passwords or downloading malware it can open the door to a bigger attack that exposes university information. He says if you find yourself caught in a hack, the best move is to contact security professionals who can then help you delete the hacker presence and rebuild your computer security. Brianna is a reporter and weekend anchor for KSL News Radio. Contact her at: bbodily@ksl.com Twitter: @briannabodily
