Office of the Chief Information Officer Press Release
The University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia

OCIO > EITS > Press Releases

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

WRITER: Bert DeSimone, 706/338-9849, bert@uga.edu
CONTACT: EITS Help Desk,706-542-3106, helpdesk@uga.edu

Beware of IRS and other phishing scams during holiday season

ATHENS, Ga.— UGA students, faculty, and staff are advised to be aware of the increase in phishing scams that always occur during the holiday season.

The EITS Office of Information Security recently warned of a fraudulent email that is currently being circulated that claims to be from the IRS. It typically has the subject "please see the attachment" and includes forms that are to be filled out and returned via fax.

Do not respond to this email and do not fill out the attached forms as requested.

According to information from the Office of Information Security Web site, phishing is typically an email scam which tries to deceive people into thinking a legitimate organization is requesting private information. These scams request you to either reply or follow a link to a site often looks identical to the service the e-mail is mimicking. The phishing scams appear to come from banking and other financial institutions, E-bay, the IRS, PayPal, and similar entities. Sometimes they appear to come from the University of Georgia.

For more information, see "Phishing Awareness at UGA" ( infosec.uga.edu/sate/phishing.php).

The Office of Information Security would also like to inform UGA students, faculty, and staff of the SecureUGA modules which specifically address phishing and identity theft. Please visit:

secure.uga.edu

Click on: Role Based Security Awareness Presentations

You can then view the presentations Identity Theft & Fraud and E-mail and Web Security.

Anyone receiving a suspicious email should contact the EITS Help Desk: helpdesk@uga.edu / 706-542-3106.

About the Office of the CIO and EITS
The Office of the Chief Information Officer and Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS) are committed to the mission of UGA as a land-and-sea-grant institution where academics come first and the research extensive university community encourages research efforts at the undergraduate and graduate levels. To that end, under the direction of the University´s Chief Information Officer, EITS endeavors to provide a robust, reliable, and secure information technology infrastructure, maintain essential production services, and offer world-class support.