The global spread of identity theft hit close to home for many Boston College community members this week, due to a string of disconcerting phone calls and e-mails from people posing as legitimate businesses in order to solicit personal information. Students and faculty should not release any information to solicitors, said officials from Information Technology (IT).
David Escalante, security director of IT, said that many students and faculty members forget that BC does not screen phone calls. If someone gets a call from a person asking about computer problems, they shouldn't assume it is a BC official, he said. "A lot of people from a variety of circumstances will call and it would be impossible for us to filter all of that," he said.
Escalante said that solicitors may also pose as researchers conducting educational surveys. "As members of an educational institution, we want to help them out. But in these times you can't help people as much as you'd like to."
The people behind the suspicious phone calls are using a number of strategies, said Jeroen Denboer, manager of the help desk for IT, who has received a number of reports from students about the calls. "They are two different styles people can adopt - the hard sell and the soft sell," he said. "They can push you aggressively or they can be very buddy-buddy."
Last week the help desk received an alarming phone call from someone posing as Microsoft personnel claiming to be conducting a survey. For students, the most frequent calls have come from a group calling from the 317 area code posing as credit card companies. The area code can be traced to Indianapolis, Ind. "Don't conduct a financial interaction with someone unless you initiate it," said Escalante.
Often students can be a little too transparent with their privacy preferences on Agora, said Escalante. The Web site allows students to post their information only to registered BC computer users and suppress it from other Internet users. "It's fine if you want to [leave the information up], but you need to reconsider the ramifications of having it there for everyone to see," said Escalante.
On the e-mail side, students should beware of businesses asking for information confirmation.
Many of these e-mails will look legitimate because they copy the style and template of those sent by popular firms like Paypal, said Denboer.
Denboer recommends that students stay on alert and consider asking the caller some questions of their own. "If you are really bothered by it, try asking some questions for yourself and then reporting what you find out back to us," said Denboer.
One of the most frustrating implications of this wave of attempted identity thefts is the backlash it causes against groups that are actually legitimately trying to do good, said Denboer.
Because of these security fears, the help center has had to change its e-mail policies. "It's kind of damaging to your reputation if someone with a dubious style and intentions writes an e-mail in your name," he said.
Recently, the United Way, a nonprofit organization that boats a 35-year working relationship with BC, was rejected from an e-mail fund-raiser because of the new regulations.
"We want people to be better citizens and contribute to the world, but this [trend] makes it harder for them to do so," said Escalante.
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