Stay alert as email phishing increases

Bailey Troutman, CCIT Communications
September 8, 2023

The Clemson University community is encouraged to remain diligent in awareness of email scams to official university email addresses. Students are reporting an increase in the number of targeted phishing attempts since the semester began.

The most frequently occurring type of scam attempt is the “job offer scam” via email. Recently, the attempts present as the “Office of Sponsored Programs” at Clemson, offering a weekly pay of $350 for a fake research position. It follows the typical formula of presenting as a Clemson professor and includes contact information to an @gmail.com account. It is important to understand that professors typically do not reach out with opportunities in this manner. To read more about this recent phishing attempt to Clemson students, visit this link.

It is essential that if you receive a suspicious email, you practice the following safety precautions before responding:

• Check to see if the sender’s email address is actually a Clemson email. A phishing attempt will most likely come from an outside email address, though this can be easy to miss.
• Clemson faculty will not typically reach out to students on campus with internship or job offers in this manner.
• To check if an email is legitimate, contact the sender through a reliable source such as the online phonebook.
• Best practices include checking for grammatical or spelling errors, generic addressing of the email (“Dear Student”), calls for immediate action or response with personal information, and not opening email attachments or website links if you are not certain who the sender is or suspect a scam.
• Visit the Cybersecurity Alerts page to learn more about specific threats and scam attempts.
• Report any suspicious email to phishing@clemson.edu.