Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business students expressed frustration after the school’s listserv was spammed Feb. 28, causing emails to flood their inbox.
The listserv, which included information from both undergraduate and graduate students, was spammed when a marketing class survey was posted for a project without proper permission.
“One of the users’ passwords was compromised, introducing objectionable traffic into the listserv,” said Terry Robb, director of strategic planning, project management and marketing for the Division of Information Technology. “We (information security and account management) shut it off and required the user to establish a new password, which halted the emails.”
Junior business student Chris Rucker said the survey made students upset because the spam filled up their mailbox.
“At least 50 people said ‘get me off this listserv,’” Rucker said. “It was so ridiculous. Twice, the director of professional development emailed us saying don’t respond to this or you will be deducted 50 points. You need 70 points to get into the (upper-level) of the business school, so that’s a pretty major consequence.”
Rucker said it caused him to question the security of the listserv.
“I don’t understand how it got hacked,” Rucker said. “They are supposed to blind copy everything,” Rucker said. “It makes you wonder if students of the university and people are able to easily access this listserv. Why was this so easy? Why didn’t they have more control? Things like that. We shouldn’t have to deal with people spamming our inbox. You have to look 100 emails down to see the actual emails you need to respond to.”
Despite student concerns, Robb said hacks in the listserv do not occur very often.
“Most people are very careful with their passwords, so it’s not an issue,” Robb said.
Rucker said the students who spammed the listserv probably didn’t have negative intentions but just didn’t know the proper etiquette for sending out surveys.