An e-mail was sent to students, faculty and staff on Monday after a phishing scam was caught through the Eastern e-mail system.

David Emmerich, manager of Information Technology Services (ITS), said they caught the problem Monday when some students and faculty sent an e-mail or called ITS when they received e-mails that looked suspicious.

“Spammers try to make (e-mails) look legit so they can access your e-mail account,” Emmerich said.

The e-mail sent to students through ITS said people received an e-mail asking them to go to http://pendek.in, a host outside the university, and put in their username and password because their account had been comprised.

Emmerich said if students or faculty had done that, the spammers would have access to their account.

“Nothing would have happened unless they put in the username and password,” he said.

Emmerich said access to an e-mail account gives the spammer a way to send out more spam to people, which causes it to spread.

“Once one person is affected, it takes a couple of hours to clean up,” he said.

Eastern has a spam filter that prevents most spam from coming through to Eastern accounts, Emmerich said.

However, spammers can word e-mails in a way that still lets them access e-mails.

The name “Danny Harvey” helped spammers get through accounts, an ITS e-mail that was sent out to all Eastern accounts, said.

In order for students and faculty to keep their accounts free of spammers, Emmerich said, they need to delete any e-mails that look suspicious.

“Just delete it if you get it,” he said.

The ITS e-mail said ITS will never ask students for their username and password through an e-mail. The e-mail also recommends not using the username and password for other websites.

If students or faculty put their username and password into the website, Emmerich said they need to change their passwords immediately.

To change the password, visit its.eiu.edu and click on change password, or call 581-HELP.

Courtney Bruner can be reached at 581-7942 or dennewsdesk@gmail.com