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University of Oregon – Act Now.

 
 
Submitted by iso-epperson on
Comments

What it is: A credential-theft scam pretending to be the University of Oregon Help Desk. The goal is to steal students' school email logins and passwords.

How it worked:

  1. The threat: An email claiming to be a "final notice" said the student's school email would stop working and be permanently deleted "within the next few hours" unless they verified it. Fear and urgency are the main tools here, they push people to act fast without thinking.
  2. The redirect: It told students to copy-paste a link into their browser (a trick to slip past email spam/link filters) leading to a generic Google Form instead of a real university site.
  3. The disguise: The form was titled "VERIFICATION" and signed "University of Oregon Help Desk" to look official.
  4. Stealing the password: This is the key trick: the form used a hidden label, "ASQ" = your PASSWORD, explained in the email. So the harmless-looking "ASQ (Protected)" fields were actually asking students to type their account passwords in plain text. The form asked for this multiple times, alongside full name, phone, and current, previous, and next school email addresses.
  5. The payoff: With a working school email and password, the attacker can hijack the account to launch more phishing, steal personal or financial data, access university systems, or lock the student out.
Alert Type
Phishing Email (on campus)
Date Entered
From
student@uoregon.edu
Date Sent
Message Content

This is the final notice regarding your school email account. We will stop processing incoming emails because you have not yet verified your account. Failure to complete the verification process may result in the permanent deletion of your account from our database within the next few hours.
 

To verify your account, copy and paste the link below into your web browser:
 

( forms.gle/s6sTfKYzAurzxydE9 )
 

Please note that this is a one-time submission and can only be completed once.
 

Important: “ASQ” refers to your PASSWORD.
 

University of Oregon Help Desk
 

Warm Regards,

Image
Header of Google Form
Image of what is being asked on the form.