Re: Aggressive and misleading advertising

["Menne, Michael S" <michael.menne () MNSU EDU>]

We haven't had direct issues such as this, but we did have a local rental company that got themselves infected and 
started spamming our students (via their internal address lists).  We blocked them.

This sounds like spam. We normally don't take any action on just spam, but this one I would.  I would block them for 
unauthorized advertising, then start asking questions about where they got the information.  The "sample" message would 
be considered misleading and lead to a panic on campus.  Given their "sample" message, there may actually be a legal 
case to be had against them.  This would also be a violation of the CAN-SPAM act 
(https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business).  At the very least, 
I would notify them that they are violating the CAN-SPAM act.  If they don't respond, notify their e-mail hosting 
provider.  We notify hosting providers on a regular basis for phishing issues. Most of them have been very responsive 
and taken down the offending websites.


Michael Menne, CISSP
Chief Information Security Officer
IT Solutions Information Security
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Phone:  (507) 389-5705
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From: The EDUCAUSE Security Community Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU> On Behalf Of Langford, Matthew
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2019 1:58 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Aggressive and misleading advertising

We had a company <Wildfire> sending hundreds of emails an hour to our student population.  The advertising implies that 
this is a resource the belongs to campus before saying at the bottom they are unaffiliated with campus.  They also use 
two hooks I really don't care for.  They have acquired the students names in addition to their email address (which 
isn't published or shared) and they use the users first name in the subject line and second the message they share 
indicates a fire at the library as a "sample" message but they don't make that clear.

Have any others encountered this issue?  Did your institutions take any actions to halt the campaign?


Matt Langford
Chief Information Security Officer
IM&T - Office of Information Security

University of Northern Colorado
Campus Box 19
Greeley, CO 80639

O: 970-351-1420


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Report all technical issues to the TSC.

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