TO: MSU Faculty, Staff, and Students
Murray State University has seen an increase in the amount of scam/phishing emails our employees and students are receiving as scammers try to take advantage of current events. These email scams are not unique to Murray State University. Information Systems is providing this information to assist with identifying email scams and how to report them.
Currently, the most frequent scam we are seeing appears to come from an MSU supervisor or administrative head. The email sometimes claims that the sender is in a meeting, or has an urgent request, and then often asks for the employee’s availability. Once the employee replies with his/her availability, the scammer responds by requesting the employee purchase gift cards (often Amazon gift cards or Apple gift cards) and then provide the gift card numbers back to the scammer in an email.
As with all email scam campaigns, the scammers constantly change their tactics, making it difficult to prevent the emails from being delivered to our employees’ and students’ email inboxes. Murray State University’s Security team has worked with Google to implement tools to either block these types of emails or to flag the subject lines of the emails to alert the receiver that the emails are likely scams.
Information Systems has created several support articles to help the campus community with phishing emails and scams.
Please note that each email scam varies in its wording and purpose. We are providing this information as a guideline. Be diligent when reading and responding to emails.
If you question the validity of an email you have received, please forward the email to abuse@murraystate.edu, fill out a support ticket at or contact the MSU Service Desk at 270-809-2346.