IAS Executive Impersonation Scams

We've gone over how to spot scams in other articles.  We've also talked about relevant scams happening in our area.  At the IAS in 2022, impersonation scams have increased in frequency and effectiveness against our community.

Most of the time, these impersonations appear to be from one of our leaders, like David Nirenberg, or Janine Purcaro.  We have seen a few impersonating our Faculty, or even our IT helpdesk employees.

And, these scams have been coming in from email, text messaging, postal mail, and phone calls.  Here is an example received by a staff member on December 8, 2022.

If you receive a message like this, it is most likely fake.  If you aren't confident that it is fake, though, please reach out to a contact at the IAS to help you determine if it is real or not.  This could be your academic assistant, manager, administrative officer, IT helpdesk, or the purported sender's assistant.  If it is fake, please let us know by sending a copy of the message to phish@ias.edu or a brief overview of the conversation if it is a phone call or text.

By remaining vigilant, we can protect the IAS by protecting ourselves.

All the best, and safe computing,
Brian