Unfortunately, I received a phishing scam from Handshake when going through my emails one day. I didn’t think anything of it because we are recommended to use Handshake for gaining job opportunities in our field, so I clicked on a link for a possible job internship and great pay. Within a day, my school account was hacked into and administration had to disable it because someone was trying to get information from it. I had to got through the long process of resetting my account, which took almost two hours over the phone. Even though the university recommended that I use it, the links they sent were embedded in an email to trick other desperate people, such as college students, into clicking it so they could steal personal information. I learned in one of my English classes that there are signs when an email, webpage, advertisement, phone call, etc. is trying to scam you. I have also learned similar information in my Information Systems class.
One of the biggest signs someone is trying to scam you online is when they offer you an unreasonably large amount of money for a small task. A scammer uses people who might be in desperate situations for money and manipulate them into inputting their information so they can steal it. This is the situation that happened to me. Since I was a college freshman desperate for money and an opportunity to start my career early, I put my information into a google form that stole my account NSHE information. Looking back, I realized that the offer was way too good to be true and was definitely not the pay an 18 year old would receive at their first time job. Another sign that you’ve clicked on a scam is when the sender uses fake urgency to make you take action quickly, providing your information so that an “unfortunate situation” won’t happen to you. In reality, this false sense of urgency is a tactic that scammer uses to make it easier for you to share sensitive information.