Phishers Go After Blackboard Users

During the first week of fall 2013, some users received a new phishing scam designed to trick Blackboard Learn users into providing UARK usernames and passwords. A text-only copy of the email is provided below. Change your password immediately at password.uark.edu if you unknowingly share your UARK login information through a phishing scam like this one.

When receiving suspicious, unsolicited email that asks you to provide sensitive information and claims to come from a trusted source like Blackboard Learn or the university, contact the sender directly to verify the message is what it claims to be. In the case of last week's phishing scam, no contact information was provided other than the sender's email address, which can easily be spoofed. When a suspicious email cannot be verified, assume it is a scam.

The university will never request your username, password or other sensitive information in an email. Avoid getting scammed by hovering your mouse over links in email. Your email application will reveal the true URL "behind" the link. A non-uark.edu Web address could be a scam.

Report phishing, spam and other abusive email to abuse@uark.edu with full header information. Learn more about reporting abuse at https://techarticles.uark.edu/email/report_abusive_email_and_expand_headers.

Information about phishing scams and tips on how to avoid them are available at https://techarticles.uark.edu/security/phishing_scams.

Last week's Blackboard Learn phishing scam:

From: Blackboard [alerts@blackboard.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 4:54 PM
To: Recipient
Subject: New Course Form

Good afternoon,
An important course form has been posted to you through the Blackboard Learning System.
Please sign in immediately to view the form.
Click here to sign in

Thank you,
Blackboard Learn.

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