Recent Phish Bowl News Articles

The UCLA Information Security Office is aware of UCLA staff being targeted by messages from cyber criminals attempting to commit payroll fraud. Be wary of cyber criminals who may try to trick you by sending phishing emails or posing as HR and Payroll staff, asking you to change your bank account information.

Fraudulent emails usually ask for a change in banking information and may seem to come from the employee's genuine sender name and email signature. The scammers have enough knowledge about the authentic employee to impersonate them effectively on phone calls.

The UCLA Information Security Office is aware of UCLA staff being targeted by messages from Google Docs with the subject "Document shared with you: "HR BENEFITS.docx" requesting an urgent review of a faculty evaluation Google Doc. The email usually indicates this request is coming from a leader within the organization, but the sender address is often non-affiliated with UCLA. This is not a legitimate message from the organization, and the Google Doc should not be opened or responded to.

The UCLA Information Security Office is aware of UCLA staff/students are being targeted by messages from spoofed email addresses: account-security-noreply[@]ucla.edu making urgent calls to confirm their email accounts.

Spoofed emails are a common form of phishing attack that is designed to trick you into divulging personal information. Spoofed emails often contain links that lead to phishing websites or malware sites. Always hover over any links in the email to ensure that the URL matches the sender's website or a legitimate website.

The UCLA Information Security Office is aware of a phishing campaign attempting to coerce recipients into making donations to an unaffiliated individual. The "From" (uclagives[at]ucla.edu) address in this campaign is using an impersonated UCLA email in a deceptive attempt to gain legitimacy. This is not a legitimate donation campaign, and recipients should not provide any information or donation.

The UCLA Information Security Office is aware of a phishing campaign attempting to exploit the earthquake tragedy in Turkey to coerce recipients into making donations to an unaffiliated individual. The "From" (uclagives[at]ucla.edu) address in this campaign is using an impersonated UCLA email in a deception attempt to gain legitimacy. This is not a legitimate donation campaign, and recipients should not provide any information or donation.

Recently UCLA has seen a significant increase in the volume of “impersonation” email campaigns affecting the campus community. These email campaigns rely on social engineering tactics and generally involve the creation of a Gmail account with a very similar email address to a senior UCLA executive in a deception attempt to coerce the recipient into a response.

UCLA Information Security Office is aware of UCLA students being targeted by fake job offer scams. Please read our recent Security Advisory regarding 

Job Opportunity Scams at UCLA - Department of Computer Science.

Recently UCLA has seen a significant increase in the volume of “impersonation” email campaigns affecting the campus community. These email campaigns rely on social engineering tactics and generally involve the creation of a Gmail account with a very similar email address to a senior UCLA executive in a deception attempt to coerce the recipient into a response.