Marquette students were puzzled Tuesday afternoon when a new message appeared in their inboxes.
The sender was another Marquette student, claiming their aunt recently moved to the area. The aunt was offering $350 weekly for students interested in pet sitting her dogs.
The message was sent to dozens of students, and the emails came from different student senders.
It was an instance of online hacking.
The hack started with a librarian’s email account. The hacker used the account to email students a message, claiming the librarian was a human resources employee with important information sent in the form of a link.
When students clicked the link, they became the hacker’s next victims.
Suddenly, their Marquette email accounts began sending messages to other students, asking for pet sitters.
The information technology desk located in Cudahy Hall began receiving service tickets related to the hack.
Pat Barnett, an IT Services employee and junior in the College of Business Administration, said the librarian’s link took students to a Microsoft account login page. When students entered their information, the pet-sitter hacking message was sent from their accounts.
“Right when we found out about that, all of the accounts were disabled, so no one had access to them anymore,” Barnett said. “All the passwords were reset.”
All hacked accounts were locked immediately. Victims of the hack were required to call IT Services or go to the IT Services desk to reset their passwords.
“This highlights the importance of cyber security,” Ryan Cassidy, IT Services employee and junior in the College of Health Sciences, said.
The security team can let worried students know if they are at risk for hacking or protected, Barnett said.
“We suggest to take a course to look at ways to notice fishy emails,” Cassidy said. “They’re very common, and you can lose your important information.”
The IT Services offers ways to stay safe on its website, Safe Computing.
