Members of the MSU community were the target of another phishing scam Wednesday.
Students, staff and faculty members with MSU e-mail accounts might have received a fraudulent message that appeared to be from the MSU Federal Credit Union. The e-mail included a link to a false credit union Web site that requested people to give credit and debit card numbers.
Immediately following reports from members of the suspicious e-mail, the credit union placed a notice on its Web site warning visitors not to give their information.
The credit union has been the target of 10 attacks in recent years, said Joyce Banish, vice president of marketing at the credit union.
The faulty Web site was shut down by the credit union's e-commerce department at 10 a.m. on Thursday. Banish said the site was based in a foreign country, but was unsure where. Past phishing incidents have come from Romania and Thailand.
A few recipients of the e-mail had MSU affiliations, but did not have an account at the credit union. One recipient without an account was telecommunication, information studies and media graduate student Jason James.
"You get e-mails from Chase Bank or Citybank, but they have fake fraudulent Web sites," James said. "It's pretty easy to do from a programming point of view."
Advertising senior and account holder Charles Samson received the e-mail as well.
"It looked realistic and had the same letterhead," he said.
Four MSU students waiting in line at the credit union Thursday hadn't heard of the scam.
Banish said the scammers attack college students because "they may be less knowledgeable." She also said the incident might have occurred because of the credit union's relationship with MSU. Banish warns college students to watch for scams.
"When personal financial information is asked for, (students) should never give it," she said. "Your institution has that information. Your credit union doesn't need that."
Scam artists are becoming more skillful, said Rich Wiggins, senior information technologist for the Academic Computing and Network Services.
"Don't trust what you read," he said. "People who do this act have gotten much more sophisticated than they were a few years ago." Scam artists' skills are improving in many aspects, Wiggins said.
"They've improved their graphics, they've improved their English," he said. "But no legitimate institution is ever going to ask for account information."
