As an update to my recent announcement, the University continues to experience a major “phishing” attack. We are working diligently to shutdown these various attacks. Through our investigation, we discovered that within one hour of yesterday’s attack, over 75 Temple users responded to the phishing scam e-mail by sending their account name, password and other personal information. For the protection of those individuals who responded, we have locked their accounts. If your account was locked, you must contact the Help Desk at 215-204-8000 and a consultant will assist you with the process of selecting a new password and unlocking your account.

As many people use the same password to systems outside of Temple, I strongly recommend that if you replied to this phishing scam that you change your passwords to all of your non-Temple accounts (gmail, yahoo, bank accounts, paypal, etc). The Help Desk consultants may also be able to help you to determine what actions you can take to minimize the threat to your personal information and security.

Please remember that your primary defense against a hacker is a strong password. Computer Services is rolling out a new initiative called TUsecure. TUsecure will require you to choose a strong password and you will also be prompted to change your password every 180 days (or every 90 days for mainframe users). Information about the TUsecure initiative can be read at www.temple.edu/tusecure.

It is important to remember that Temple University will never ask you for your password or any personal information in an email. You should not supply your password to anyone as this goes against Temple University policy and serves to protect your identity and personal information.

As always, Computer Services will continue to look for ways to provide better security and privacy to our University Community. For more information on Computer Security, please visit our website at www.temple.edu/cs/security.