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A Canadian University Gave $11 Million To a Scammer (vice.com)
A Canadian university transferred more than $11 million CAD (around $9 million USD) to a scammer that university staff believed to be a vendor in a phishing attack, a university statement published on Thursday states. From a report: Staff at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta became aware of the fraud on Wednesday, August 23, the statement says. According to the university, the attacker sent a series of emails that convinced staff to change payment details for a vendor, and that these changes resulted in the transfer of $11.8 million CAD into bank accounts that the school has traced to Canada and Hong Kong. The school is working with authorities in Edmonton, Montreal, London, and Hong Kong, the statement reads. According to the university, its IT systems were not compromised and no personal or financial information was stolen. A phishing scam is not technically a "hack," it should be noted, and only requires the attacker to convince the victim to send money. The school's preliminary investigation found that "controls around the process of changing vendor banking information were inadequate, and that a number of opportunities to identify the fraud were missed."
The phisher was awarded an honorary degree in social engineering.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
A phishing scam is not technically a "hack,"
Unless you're Clinton's campaign man Podesta or the DNC, in which case it's a Super Powerful Russian Hack That Only Trump Could Have Payed For.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
My city fell for that one.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
1) Universities don't control the cost of textbooks, publishers do
Professors who write the textbooks that are required for their classes have a non trivial part to play in that cost.
1) Universities don't control the cost of textbooks, publishers do
Professors require that students use the latest edition of the books, killing the used book market and keeping prices artificially high.
2) A quick look a resident's cost for Canadian universities shows an average tuition of $5428 US and a max of $17808 US.
The average cost of a 4-year college in the US, is, by comparison, at least $23,600, and the most expensive about $43k
The Canadian tuition you quoted is per-year (see official stats here
With the cost of tuition and text books, people should be scamming them.
Have you looked at the cost of tuition in Canada? It is far, far less than the US and now even the UK. At UAlberta the typical total tuition costs (all union, transit etc. fees included) for a Canadian (resident or citizen) student taking a full course load are ~$8k/year for science - and those are Canadian dollars so about US$6k. If you want accommodation and food in a residence the cost rises to just under $16k/year (CAD). You can do the calculation here. The institute in question, Grant McEwan, should be even cheaper. Compare that to the standard £9,000 tuition (~$14,500) in the UK and ~US$40-60k for a top university in the US.
As for the text books, those profits go to the publishers, not the university and frankly the price has started to tick off so many of us faculty that we are either writing our own or using free/open resources at least for lower level courses.
Not really any different than all the shysters applying for grants for research projects at any University and providing bullshit results for the funding and additional funding?
Eh? Have you ever applied for a grant?
1) Grant application goes through a peer review -- so at the very least you need to convince ~5 peers and at least 1 program officer that your research is worthy of funding.
2) 95% of money goes to the university and to students or postdocs (professors can only pay themselves in the summer for up to 2 months at most)
3) You have to do annual reports, follow a bunch of rules on anything you buy, fill out an ungodly number of conflict-of-interest forms.
I could go on. But it is really, really different from just getting the money, I assure you.
Yep, it's only fair, universities have been scamming students for generations - that does seem to be tailing off though...
Requiem for the American Dream
Actually, goal-posts are no longer the de-facto standard for this type of idea-transfer.
Requiem for the American Dream
they have bankruptcy for student loans
https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/...
And? Do you seriously think the most expensive college in the US is 43 grand for the whole shebang?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's CAD, so the conversion is probably wrong. It's more like $82.50 USD.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"A phishing scam is not technically a "hack," it should be noted, and only requires the attacker to convince the victim to send money." It's also the easiest scam to protect yourself or organization from, all that is required is a bit of education.
Doing a quick search reveals that even the cheapest universities tuition and fees run $5K per year. Tuition runs between 10-24K depending upon in/out of state tuition. However, if you're wanting to go to an accredited university, you can look at 10K / year as a minimum, if you're in-state, and that was checking two known "cheap" universities for in state tuition. It's more than 21K / year if you're out of state.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.