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December 4, 2024

This phony email was sent impersonating a UC Berkeley administrative department. It was attempting to get users to click with a bogus $2,250 financial bonus for eligible faculty and staff.

What makes this a phishing message?

The sender is not an @berkeley.edu sender and the login page is NOT an official CalNet CAS page.

This targeted phishing scam uses financial motivation and curiosity to attempt to get campus affiliates to send their usernames, emails, and passwords.

December 2, 2024

This fake email termination message was received by many users allegedly telling them their campus email account would be suspended.

Commonly used phony subject lines include:

'ADVANCE WARNING'

'***Urgent*** Your Account Will Be Suspended'

'ATTENTION!!! Actin Needed Now'

Tips if Something Seems Off:

UC Berkeley Help Desks will NEVER initiate contact directly via test to personal cell phone numbers

This is a fraudulent offer for a remote assistant position. The scammer will impersonate a real UCB professor or department and try to take the conversation offline to a 'personal email' address. 

Common bogus email subject lines include:

'Approved Part - Time Job ( Offer For Staffs & Students )'

'VIRTUAL PERSONAL ASSITANT JOB (REMOTE)'

'**NEW INTERNSHIP OFFER**'

'Internship Opportunities at University of California, Berkeley'

'Research Assistant Position'

November 12, 2024

This fake email was sent to a number of teaching faculty members, alerting them falsely that they were exposed to a student in class with Covid.

What makes this a phishing message?

This targeted phishing scam pretending to be a UC WarnMe Health alert.

This targeted phishing scam uses urgency and fear to cause the recipients to act, the text is also very well done and the non-UCB link is obscured.

Tips if Something Seems Off:

UC Berkeley Help Desks will NEVER initiate contact directly via text to personal cell phone numbers.

October 1, 2024

What makes this a phishing message?

This is a classic 'sextortion' hoax from a random GMail email address.

https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/20517-scam-alert-beware-of-sextortion-emails

Tips if Something Seems Off:

The anonymous fraudster is now using leaked home address information to induce more fear in the recipients. The data likely came from a recent data breach, possibly the National Public Data (NPD) data release.

What makes this a phishing message?

This email has been specifically targeting UC Berkeley Executives and asks them to click a link and enter their credentials to review an employee termination agreement.

Tips if Something Seems Off:

The sender name indicates an official Docusign like service, but is allegedly from OnlineSIGN-DOC, EDOC-ReadytoSign, or OnlineSignDESK-Ready.

September 5, 2024

Overview

Every Windows product has a lifecycle, and that lifecycle ends when it no longer receives security updates or fixes, software updates, and/or technical support. On October 14, 2025, Microsoft will discontinue support for the Windows 10 Operating System. Without security patches, these systems will be easy targets for hackers, malware, and viruses.

July 3, 2024

This phony potential Covid contact alert was received by many users sent to their Campus bMail accounts.

What makes this a phishing message?

This targeted phishing scam is using a fake UC Berkeley email address

From: UC Berkeley Alerts <CHI-Information@case.edu>

This targeted phishing scam directs user to a bogus CAS authentication page..

June 11, 2024

This fake email termination notification was received by many users on their personal cell phone numbers via text message.

What makes this a phishing message?

This targeted phishing scam is pretending to be a UC Berkeley technician and uses urgency and fear to cause the recipients to act, threatening loss of service (email).

Tips if Something Seems Off:

UC Berkeley Help Desks will NEVER initiate contact directly via test to personal cell phone numbers

May 7, 2024

This is a notice from the Information Security Office to alert you to a vulnerability that impacts the R programming language. Please share this alert internally with IT admins, service owners, and researchers who run the product so they are aware and know what actions to take to address this vulnerability.

April 29, 2024

xz utils is a popular data compression library found in many Linux distributions. The critical vulnerability found in recent versions of the xz library, liblzma, includes a malicious code injection designed to allow unauthorized remote access. Click for more details.
Shim is a bootloader that facilitates the Secure Boot process on computers using Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. The bug involves trusting the remote server’s HTTP headers while booting over HTTP, which might allow an out-of-bounds write, and privileged code execution.

January 30, 2024

What makes this a phishing message?

This targeted phishing scam impersonates the UC Berkeley faculty member or campus lab manager.

This email is sent to the parents of a student working in a campus lab. It invents a phony 'accident' that damaged an expensive piece of lab equipment and asks the parents of the lab member to reimburse the lab for part of the cost of replacement.

This targeted phishing scam uses urgency and fear to cause the recipients to act, extorting money from a phony accident.

December 7, 2023

Every year, students at UC Berkeley are scammed out of thousands of dollars via fake employment offers. Beware of unsolicited emails, phone calls, texts or even facebook messages offering internship or employment opportunities.

October 9, 2023

What makes this a phishing message?

This targeted phishing scam impersonates the UC Berkeley Duo Admin to create fear to cause the recipients to act, scanning the QR code which leads to a malicious link.

This targeted phishing scam uses urgency and fear to cause the recipients to act, exposing their personal information.

February 8, 2023

If you are unable to log into bMail, forward the message to phishing@berkeley.edu. For more information visit https://security.berkeley.edu/resources/phishing

January 9, 2023

LastPass has updated the information on the Security Incident they disclosed in August. They have discovered that the attackers were able to leverage the information they got in August to gain access to some customer data including some encrypted vault backups. ISO has provided guidance to campus users of LastPass. Click for further details.

January 1, 2023

June 22, 2022

Cybersecurity is a key issue for us in our private lives — think identity theft — and on the national scale — such as in federal elections. For scientists in academic and commercial labs, threats include Intellectual Property (IP) theft, ransomware, and hacktivism.

Where are we most vulnerable to those who want to disrupt or steal from us?

How can we do the best possible job of protecting ourselves and the organizations we serve?

June 15, 2022

June is Internet Safety Month and now’s the right time to consider how you are securing your family’s safety online. We often think of safety in terms of physical and emotional safety but in the digital age, we also need to focus on what keeps our families – namely our children – safe at any age. The following helpful strategies are some of the ways you can ensure life online allows them to take full advantage of the internet, while minimizing the risk and impact on their growth.