Telephone Scam - Fake IT Support Calls

The University of Regina has recently seen an increase in phone scams where the caller pretends to be from IT and says you have a virus on your computer. They then attempt to gain access to your system and may even ask for login credentials, or try to install software on your system. The caller may ask for credit card information, offer to sell you a computer warranty or try to sell you software to protect your system.

What should I do?
If you are suspicious in any way, hang up immediately. Phone the IT Support Centre at -4685 and let them know you had a suspicious call. They will be able to confirm if there is a ticket for the issue and if the call was legitimately from a U of R employee. Our Technical Analysts will not to be offended if you hang up on them - it is better to err on the side of caution!  Trust your instincts.  If in doubt, you can always visit the ITSC to confirm.

What if I received a call and inadvertently provided information?
- Record the inbound phone number and time of the call, if possible.
- Contact IT Support to perform a scan of your computer as malware or a remote access tool may have been installed.
- Change the password immediately for any account that may have been compromised.

For your uregina.ca (Novell/email) account go to the IS website:
www.uregina.ca/is, click "Change Password" under Quicklinks on the right side. To change your Banner password, log into Banner as usual, and click "Change Banner Password" at the top right.

To change your UR Self-Service password, log in as usual, click "Personal Information", then click Change PIN
- If you use online banking, log in to your online banking account and change your password there as well.

How can I tell if the call is real?
- Ask questions to confirm the caller's identity.
- Most frequently, scam calls originate from off campus phone numbers, possibly in other area codes. If your phone is equipped with caller ID, valid calls will originate from an on-campus phone number (i.e. 306-337-XXXX or 306-585-XXXX).
- If you have contacted IT Support for computer assistance, ask for the Ticket # and verify the number from your email confirmation.
- If you have not contacted IT Support for computer assistance, be cautious.  We may legitimately contact you regarding a virus that our network has detected, so try to verify that the caller is indeed an Information Services employee.
- Our technical analysts will indicate they are calling from Information Services and will provide their name. You can verify the names in the U of R Phonebook.
- We may ask to connect remotely, but will ask you to open TeamViewer on your desktop. Scammers may direct you to a remote support website to connect to your system, or request that you install 3rd party software.