The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning college students of phishing scams targeting their personal information. These emails claim to be from the Financial Department of Drake University or another school and instruct you to click a link to see a message about your COVID-19 economic stimulus check, then log in with your Drake ID and password. If you do log in, you could be giving your ID, password, and other personal information away to scammers, as well as potentially downloading malware to your computer or smartphone. 

Fortunately, these scams are easy to avoid by taking a few steps:  

• Research where a legitimate university email would be coming from, as many phishing emails use inaccurate department names.  

• Call Drake’s Finance or Registrar’s office (or whatever office it claims to be from) directly to confirm the email’s authenticity.

• Examine the message closely. While some phishing emails can be nearly impossible to distinguish from the real thing—bad grammar and spelling can give them away.  

If you receive an email that you’re unsure about, forward it to informationsecurity@drake.edu or report it directly to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint. 

—Peter Lundstedt, ITS