University gives alert about bogus YSU website

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Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Internet surfers beware: Youngstown State University’s real website ends with .edu.

A bogus site has cropped up though, at www.ysu.com.

Ron Cole, YSU spokesman, said the university sent an email campuswide Thursday alerting people that the site exists and telling them not to use it.

“There’s a feature where students can log in. They should not, under any circumstances, do that,” Cole said. “If they have already done that, they should go to our website and change their login.”

If a student input their login and password information, it can be used by whomever operates that bogus site to access a student’s information via the actual YSU site, he said. That could include personal information, grades and in the case of student employees, direct-deposit bank information.

The site has information about YSU and its campus as well as links to the real YSU website.

“Our general counsel’s office has been informed of it and is looking to see what, if any, legal ramifications there are,” Cole said.

The fake site also uses YSU’s logo, he said.

The university learned of the site after students and employees reported to YSU’s information-technology department about it.