This week a rather irritating phone campaign has hit the campus. Phone solicitors are calling employees and asking them to confirm their role. If the employee does, the caller asks if they can send them some email. This particular campaign is more annoying than malicious. However, it provides a great opportunity to review phone safety.

With people becoming more tech savvy and cybersafety aware, it is becoming harder for criminals to score with a simple phishing email. To increase the odds that their potential victims will be tricked, they are turning more and more to pre-texting. The phone is fast becoming their favorite tool.

Typically a target receives a phone call with the scammer pretending to be someone who is trusted or has a right to the information they are asking for.  They will often ask questions that seem innocent enough. However they are gathering information about you and the University that they can use against you later. Armed with enough information, they can create a phishing email that is almost impossible to identify as malicious.

If you receive a phone call from someone who is asking for information they should already have or that they shouldn’t know, politely ask them for the name of their organization and then tell them you will contact them later. You can then hangup and call that organization directly using a number that you have either used before or comes from the organization’s official website.  If you cannot reach the individual through the organization’s switchboard, then you know that it is a scam.