E-Mail Scam Targets Colleges

An e-mail scam has hit thousands of users at dozens of colleges over the past few weeks, leaving network administrators scrambling to respond before campus computer accounts are taken over by spammers.

Students, professors, and staff members at the affected colleges received e-mail messages that purport to come from the colleges' help desks, asking users to reply with their log-in and password, and in some cases other personal information including birth date.

But the messages actually come from malicious hackers who use the information to send spam messages from the accounts. And administrators worry that the compromised accounts could be used to do further damage to the university networks.