Student Loans Company warns of phishing attack
The Student Loans Company is contacting customers who it believes may have had their personal details compromised as a result of a phishing attack.
The email attack was designed to steal students’ personal details and the company is advising students that a genuine email from the company would never ask them to divulge personal or financial information such as bank details.
The Student Loans Company handles government loans taken out by students at UK universities and colleges, to support them in their studies.
It has not confirmed how many customers may have been affected by the latest scam, which follows a number of earlier phishing attacks.
Attacks often take place in September, January and April, the months when most students pay the instalments on their loans.
Heather Laing, fraud prevention and detection manager for the Student Loans Company, said: “We are currently contacting a number of students by telephone who we have identified as being at risk of having their details compromised, to advise them of the necessary security steps they should follow to ensure their details are protected”.
Earlier this week it was announced that the Metropolitan Police Service has arrested six people over a phishing scam which targeted UK students in August.
The suspects are believed to have stolen more than £1 million through the scam which involved an email asking the Student Loan Company’s customers to update their loan account details.
A link in the email directed the students to a bogus website which appeared genuine but allowed the phishers to steal personal details and take large sums of money from bank accounts.
The suspects were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, for money laundering offences and under the Computer Misuse Act.
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