Critical computer infection warning

From John Lawson, Western's vice provost for Information Technology and
chief information officer:

You may have seen a recent increase in the number of ‘phishing' emails coming from Western account holders. Most of these are “warnings” about either updating your account information or that your email quota has been reached. These are bogus messages with the intent of gathering your login information. Once gathered, your account is then used to send other phishing messages and potentially other viruses.

These messages often look authentic and we have had some people click on the links and provide their account information. This can and has resulted in significant email traffic both to Western account holders and outside email addresses. For example, over the weekend, one account literally sent millions of messages without the user's knowledge.

Western's technology groups will NEVER send you an email that has a link that goes off campus (hover your mouse over the link and the real address will be revealed). Here is an example of a recent message: https://atus.wwu.edu.

We will NEVER ask you for your password.

IF you have clicked on a link, even from your home machine, that has asked for personal information such as your username or password, contact the Help Desk (x3333) or your departmental IT staff right away. You may be infected and immediate remediation is necessary.

Please help us clean up this infection. If you have responded to any message asking for your login information (or credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.), please contact the Help Desk (x3333).

Yours for safer computing,

John