Phish Bowl

The UCLA Information Security Office advises faculty, staff, and students to be vigilant when opening emails from unknown, suspicious, or unexpected senders. Some of these messages can contain malicious content in the form of infected file attachments or attempts to steal personal information through carefully crafted social engineering campaigns.

These emails, collectively called "phishing emails," or "phishing scams," are designed to trick campus users into providing their passwords and other identifying information to attackers. They can also be designed to extort money or trick users into navigating to fake login pages, which can sometimes mimic the look of well-known logon screens, like the UCLA Logon page.

If you find the suspicious email you received already recorded in the phish bowl, please mark the email as spam, and you're done. If it's not noted in the phish bowl, please mark it as phishing (instructions below) and forward it to Information Security Team. It will be added so others are aware of it.

If you have responded to a suspicious email and/or clicked on a link and entered any account or personal information, please immediately contact the IT Support Center or your local departmental IT unit and reset your account password to prevent scammers from using your account.

How to Report a Phishing Scam

The UCLA Information Security Office requests that campus users report phishing messages to our team so that we can proactively alert campus users and bring awareness to widespread phishing campaigns. In order for the Information Security Office to take action in response to a reported phishing message, please follow these steps:

Please follow instructions on How to Report a Phishing Scam
Send the resulting message and attachment to security@ucla.edu with a subject line identifying the message as a phishing report.

It is important to be aware of fraudulent phishing schemes. Check back here as we update the list below with known phishing attempts.

Date	Title	Description
03/11/2023	UCLA Gives - Making donations to an unaffiliated individual	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.
02/15/2023	UCLA Stand with Türkiye and Syria	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.
01/26/2023	Changing of my Direct Deposit	Fraudulent Employee Direct Deposit Information Urgent Update Requests
01/12/2023	Document shared with you: "2022-2023 Faculty Evaluation .Docx"	Impersonation of a leader within the UCLA organization requesting they review a fake Google Doc evaluation.
01/08/2023	Impersonation Email Campaigns: Kindly provide your available cell number i can reach you at	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.
09/06/2022	Waiting for the payment. I have e-mailed you from your account email scam	Scam emails claim that an explicit video featuring the recipient will be leaked unless a ransom is paid.
08/05/2022	JOB FOR YOU - Department of Psychology	Department of Psychology needs the services of students to work remotely as research assistants and gets paid weekly.
05/11/2022	JOB POSITION!	We urgently require the services of students to fill the position of Research assistants on a part time basis and get paid $350 weekly. The position can be served remotely and materials needed to work with will be provided by the department .
05/04/2022	Internship UCLA	Review following security advisories related to recent job scams at UCLA and stay secure.
04/01/2022	Paycheck	Avoid mobile deposit scams.
03/18/2022	Final Report for ...	Spear phishing attempt is a carefully crafted personalized email that is usually sent with an attachment or requests a response. The fraudster then tries to entice the recipient to open the infected attachment or respond with personal information.
03/14/2022	‘Are you busy?’, “Hi,” or “Urgent”. E-mail Scam	We have reports from faculty and staff who have been recipients of a new twist on an old e-mail scam. These phishing scams often come from a non-UCLA email address with poor spelling/grammar.
03/07/2022	Avoid Package Delivery Scams	You should never click a link or call back the number from an unexpected delivery notice.
03/03/2022	Job Scams at UCLA	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.
10/01/2021	Impersonation email campaign: Send me your available cell number	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.