Re: Degreedup.org - phishing scam or just junk mail?

[Bob Bayn <bob.bayn () USU EDU>]

Actually a little looking at the results of a google search for "degreedup scholarship site:.edu" will show that many 
of the listings are in other units of the school than their financial aid office.  The thorough spam of employees gets 
the message out to people who aren't familiar with scholarship standards and will post the notice just to be "helpful" 
to their group of students.  The degreedup spam (and its predecessor hazing awareness scholarship spam) always include 
a link to one of these googled sites as sort of a "reference" and claim to legitimacy, even when the site is in some 
department or student organization.

Our Financial Aid office listed it without review, but when I pointed out some of the "features" of the scholarship, 
they took it down.  

The award process includes no evaluation of student performance or need, it is a lottery.

Bob Bayn              (435)797-2396           IT Security Team
Office of Information Technology,     Utah State University
    three common hazardous email scams to watch out for:
     1) "phishing" for your email password
     2) unfamiliar transaction report from familiar business
     3) attachment with no explanation in the message body


________________________________________
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv [SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] on behalf of Harvard 
Townsend [harv () KSU EDU]
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 10:48 AM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Degreedup.org - phishing scam or just junk mail?

We get many of these too. I agree it smells phishy, but a quick search of .edu's showed that it's
listed on many higher ed financial aid websites under "Other Scholarships" or "Outside Scholarships."
I think I would still steer students away from it. How many scholarship applications require you to
"write or type and print the following sentence 25 times, 'I will not stop and I will not quit until I am
degreed up!" They also claim monthly awards and announce the winners, but no winners are
listed at the moment. Maybe it's a ploy to get people to buy stuff from their "store" (degreedup.com)?
How much you want to be that the "free product of your choice for the first 15 applicants each month"
 requires you to pay a shipping and handling fee?
--
Harvard Townsend
Chief Information Security Officer
Kansas State University
Email: harv () ksu edu,  Voice: 785-532-2985


On Apr 30, 2012, at 9:45 AM, Jeff Giacobbe wrote:

> Greetings-
>
> Just testing the wind on this one... Our campus seems to get regular
> monthly 'spam' from an outfit called DegreedUp.org offering scholarship
> applications (for a small fee of course)
>
> I'm trying to determine if this is just your run-of-the-mill unsolicited
> junk mail or if it moves into phishing scam territory.
>
> I can provide a copy of the emails we've received privately if anyone is
> interested.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeff Giacobbe
> Associate Vice President Enterprise Technology Services
> Montclair State University
> <giacobbej.vcf>