Many ARRL members with arrl.net e-mail accounts have recently received bogus e-mails in a “phishing” attack. These are scams designed to scare people into e-mailing back personal information -- such as user names and passwords -- to the scammer at an unknown address. This particular attack was more sophisticated than usual, but far from unique.

“There is never a time when we would ask via e-mail for user names and passwords of arrl.net users,” explained ARRL IT Manager Michael Keane, K1MK. “There is simply no need to ever do so. If you receive an e-mail asking for personal information and it looks like it originated from ARRL, please do not respond. The best thing you can do when receiving bogus e-mails is to simply add it to the spam list in your computer’s e-mail program and delete it. Please don’t forward it to ARRL HQ -- we will have already seen it and are already responding to it.”

ARRL members -- and anyone who uses e-mail services -- should be constantly aware that e-mail is far from secure. If anyone ever asks you for personal information via e-mail, it probably is a scam, no matter how pretty or professional their logo or graphics may appear.