What Is Happening
Impersonation scams are a challenge that all universities face, and unfortunately, UCSC is no exception. Our campus community has experienced a significant increase in phishing emails as threat actors continue to develop new methods to target our community. It's difficult for Information Security to stop these scammers because they can easily create a wide range of free legitimate email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, etc.
As a reminder, scammers are constantly evolving their methods to target their victims. Therefore, it's crucial for recipients to verify the email's authenticity by examining the email address instead of relying solely on the display name. Our strategy is to educate our campus community on how to identify and report these scams as phishing or spam.
What You Can Do About It
One of the best ways you can assist our students is to remind them at the start of each quarter that you would never request a job from them via email using a non-UCSC email address. Sharing this message will aid our students in avoiding becoming a victim.
If you receive a report from a student who was a victim of an email scam, please ask them to forward the phishing email to phishing@ucsc.edu and Information Security will provide them with the next steps.
Additional Resources
Get Help
- If you need assistance, contact the ITS Support Center
- To report a security incident, visit UCSC’s Report a Security Incident page
