Groupspaces...is it social engineering or a desired campus server.

["Hauber, Wayne [ITSEC]" <wjhauber () IASTATE EDU>]

I have questions about Groupspaces.com. It appears to be an organization that aggressively markets its services to 
student organizations. They found a way to mine lists of student organization at ISU then invited the officers of ISU 
clubs to use their services to manage their clubs.

Background: I first heard about Groupspaces from my daughter, a student at ISU, who received an e-mail from them in 
April 2011. The Groupspaces folks decided that she was an officer on her dorm floor and wanted her to use their 
services. She was never an officer on her dorm floor but *is* the daughter of a security analyst and knows enough to be 
concerned. We learned of other badly targeted e-mails and investigated. Our university has no contractual relationship 
with Groupspaces.  We noticed that it has existed for a while and may be a real service. We eventually let the matter 
drop.

On Friday, I learned that Groupspaces was sending badly targeted e-mails to students again. A counselor wondered if 
they were trustworthy.

I investigated and notice that Groupspaces offers many services to clubs. One notable service is dues collection. 
Apparently, Groupspaces will handle dues collection from your members and can use paypal and credit cards for 
collection. I decided that I could not tell the difference between Groupspaces and some sort of elegant social 
engineering/phishing scheme and temporarily blocked groupspaces.com at our campus border.

Questions:


1.       Is anyone familiar with Groupspaces.com and can tell us more about them?

2.       Are they trustworthy?

3.       Has your Treasurer's office decided that Groupspaces.com can be trusted with dues collection from your 
students?

4.       What do they charge student organizations?

5.       Has your school entered into a contractual relationship with Groupspaces.com?

Wayne Hauber (515) 294-9890
Iowa State University
Information Technology Services
IT Security and Policies
297 Durham Center, ISU, Ames, Iowa 50011
wjhauber () iastate edu<mailto:wjhauber () iastate edu>