Email scam targets Univ. of Delaware faculty

A flattering email sent to some faculty members at the University of Delaware today is actually an elaborate scam.

University leaders are warning UD professors and others of a scam designed to gain access to UD credentials. The emails were sent to faculty members in at least four different areas of the university.

The email is addressed to individual faculty members and compliments their writings and research and asks to be able to share that research. The links the scammers provide to share lead to a fake website designed to steal UD credentials.

UD’s warning recognizes that while “all faculty like to know their research is appreciated,” professors need to look for signs that a website is legitimate before inputting their credentials. The tell-tale signs that this scam leads to a bogus website is the lack of a “https” at the start of the URL.  The URL is also not a valid “udel.edu” URL. It’s a phony address that starts out like the official URL: udel.edu, but then it transforms the “udel.edu” part to “udel.edud.in”. 

The school warns any faculty that may have input their credentials into a bogus site to change the password on their UDelNet login immediately. The password on any associated Google or Dropbox account should be changed as well.