Kentucky Imposter/Phishing Attempt?

[rvavr]

I've applied for the (Social) Psychology PhD program at University of Kentucky, and this morning I received an interesting email. It was with regard to a webcast the graduate school is apparently hosting tomorrow, and how to participate. To begin with, here is the text from the email:

Hello rvavr,

We want to invite you to catch our webcast on College Week Live this Wednesday, December 20th. For your convenience, you can join in at anytime using your exclusive access link: . No registration is required!

We will be available to answer questions live regarding our graduate programs, application process, funding opportunities and more from 7:00-9:00 AM and 2:00-4:00 PM EST. We hope to talk with you about your future as a University of Kentucky Wildcat!

P.S.: We're social! You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Sincerely,

Suzanne McGinnis
Assistant Director of Admissions and Recruitment
The Graduate School
University of Kentucky

 

So, this sets off a number of red flags for me that make me suspicious.

First of all, isn't that extremely short notice to notify applicants the day before a Q&A session?

Second, the text I wrote above is accurate. There really is no link after the colon beside "exclusive access link." Furthermore, all of the links in the email (denoted by the underlined text above) lead to pages on the site "uky.askadmissions.net." When I search this website in google, I get no results with this actual domain name. I don't even get any returns for "askadmissions.net."

Speaking of fishy domain names, the third suspicious characteristic of the email is the domain name of the sender. It's addressed from come2uk@uky.edu. Okay, I guess that checks out - same domain name as faculty and staff at University of Kentucky. BUT, it comes from that address via iad01.hobsonsmail.com. That makes me a bit uncomfortable.

I'm worried that this may be a malicious email in disguise. It looks awfully official, there are just some weird things about the email that set off alarm bells for me. Does this seem suspicious to anyone else? Has anyone else gotten similar emails from Kentucky (or other schools)?

I've already forwarded the email to officials in the UK Graduate School - under the guise of seeking more information about the purported webcast - hoping that they will clear things up for me.

[vallaboop]

27 minutes ago, rvavr said:

I've applied for the (Social) Psychology PhD program at University of Kentucky, and this morning I received an interesting email. It was with regard to a webcast the graduate school is apparently hosting tomorrow, and how to participate. To begin with, here is the text from the email:

Hello rvavr,

We want to invite you to catch our webcast on College Week Live this Wednesday, December 20th. For your convenience, you can join in at anytime using your exclusive access link: . No registration is required!

We will be available to answer questions live regarding our graduate programs, application process, funding opportunities and more from 7:00-9:00 AM and 2:00-4:00 PM EST. We hope to talk with you about your future as a University of Kentucky Wildcat!

P.S.: We're social! You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

Sincerely,

Suzanne McGinnis
Assistant Director of Admissions and Recruitment
The Graduate School
University of Kentucky

 

So, this sets off a number of red flags for me that make me suspicious.

First of all, isn't that extremely short notice to notify applicants the day before a Q&A session?

Second, the text I wrote above is accurate. There really is no link after the colon beside "exclusive access link." Furthermore, all of the links in the email (denoted by the underlined text above) lead to pages on the site "uky.askadmissions.net." When I search this website in google, I get no results with this actual domain name. I don't even get any returns for "askadmissions.net."

Speaking of fishy domain names, the third suspicious characteristic of the email is the domain name of the sender. It's addressed from come2uk@uky.edu. Okay, I guess that checks out - same domain name as faculty and staff at University of Kentucky. BUT, it comes from that address via iad01.hobsonsmail.com. That makes me a bit uncomfortable.

I'm worried that this may be a malicious email in disguise. It looks awfully official, there are just some weird things about the email that set off alarm bells for me. Does this seem suspicious to anyone else? Has anyone else gotten similar emails from Kentucky (or other schools)?

I've already forwarded the email to officials in the UK Graduate School - under the guise of seeking more information about the purported webcast - hoping that they will clear things up for me.

Honestly it seems like a malicious email to me. Not only for the reasons you mentioned but they would be answering these questions AFTER the deadline. You did the right thing letting the grad school now about this email. You should probably delete it

[ezraontheinternet]

I got it too, but I just skimmed over it so I didn't notice the weird sender address or the missing link. Sketchy.

[rvavr]

2 hours ago, cindyboop said:

Honestly it seems like a malicious email to me. Not only for the reasons you mentioned but they would be answering these questions AFTER the deadline. You did the right thing letting the grad school now about this email. You should probably delete it

You're absolutely right, I hadn't thought of that angle. It is very peculiar to offer information about the application process after the application's due. 

I'm very interested to hear what the graduate school officials have to say.

[G127V]

got the same email as well