Several scam emails have flooded student accounts over the past week. Bloomsburg University’s Network Services office released a statement to all students regarding the incident.

According to Vincent Kozlek of the BU Network Services, eight separate accounts sent out over 30,000 emails to student accounts with the subject, “JOB REFERRAL (Check This Out For Yourself): Employment Opportunity.” The email suggested the sender was recruiting students for a job to make quick money on careerbuilder.com.

Students are only directly affected if they follow the link and supply the site with a street address, a personal email address and a cell phone number. After receiving personal information, the scammer contacts the students seeking bank information for “direct deposit” with the promise of free products.

The accounts used to distribute the scam email were student accounts that were compromised due to an email expressing the need of a digital signature through an external form on “DocuSign.” This email was sent out on Monday, March 18, with the subject line “Awaiting Approval.” Giving password information granted the scammer access to student emails.

In addition to the scam emails addressed in the university-wide email, students received several emails between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20, about another part-time job opportunity.

This new email has the subject “Part-time/Job Opportunity!!!” and several misspellings in the message. Bloomsburg University has not made a comment about these new emails, although they appear to be similar to the previous phishing attempts.

Students, staff and faculty are encouraged to change their university passwords, especially if they believe that could be at risk.
If students would like more information about phishing scams, they can visit https://intranet.bloomu.edu/technology/phishing.