Computing Services and Instructional Technology

CSIT has this morning seen indications of a new wavy of email extortion scams targeting accounts within our domain.  While we have seen this particular scam previously and warned the NWU community against it, the indications of a significant number of these message being distributed within our domain warrant a reminder.

CSIT has received reports this morning of a widely distributed email scam.  The scam is similar in many respects to others about which we have previously warned, but because of the number of reports we are repeating our security alert.

CSIT has discovered and received confirming reports from numerous faculty, staff and students of a phishing scam which targets PayPal accounts holders.  The message appears to originate from either of two compromised NWU accounts.

CSIT is receiving reports of a new phishing scam which combines elements of two previous scams.  The new phishing scam appears to be widely distributed to NWU mailboxes.

CSIT has received reports this evening of a widely distributed email scam.  The scam is similar in many respects to others about which we have previously warned, but because of the number of reports we are repeating our security alert.

UPDATE: In the few moments since sending this alert, we have received additional reports of a second instance of the email phishing scam described below with minor variations.  The variants in the new reports include:

CSIT has received multiple reports this morning regarding a new wave of an email scam.  This particular scam is one which we have seen before, but has been distributed widely enough to warrant a reminder.

NASA today declared that the Mars rover Opportunity was dead.  The announcement comes after hundreds of attempts to communicate with the rover have failed, included some radio signals sent as recently as last night.  NASA's Opportunity Mission Directorate reported "Opportunity remains silent."

We have scheduled an extended maintenance process for Colleague, the NWU administrative services system.  The maintenance window will begin at about 9:00am on Saturday, 2/16, and is expected to continue through about 12:00pm the same day.  During this maintenance operation, Colleague, WebAdvisor and Self-Service will be inaccessible.

Please plan accordingly.  Thank you.

CSIT has this morning received reports that a slight variant of this "secret shopper" scam is being received in some NWU Inboxes.  Once again, the scam appears to originate from a compromised NWU account (which has now been blocked).