Advertising colleges that are no longer in operation have appeared on several websites; USA Today It has been reported.
The newspaper's investigation found at least nine websites that appeared to represent institutions that had been closed for several years. Many sites also required an application fee as well as credit card and driver's license information.
Some of its flagship universities closed nearly a decade ago, including Morrison University in 2014 and Jones International University in 2015.
Marymount California University, which closed two years ago, also owns domain registrar Namecheap Inc. I have set up a fake site below. USA Today Marymount warned about the scam site, and Marymount posted a warning on its own website and sent a cease and desist letter to Namecheap. The site was shut down earlier this month.
The website's domain ended in .education, .college, and .university. All of these do not require any regulations, unlike the more standard .edu domain endings, for which only accredited institutions can qualify.
Higher education institutions have been plagued by fraud attempts over the past few years, following a massive data breach by cyber group Cl0p in May 2023. The group claims to have stolen data by compromising MOVEit, a software product used for file transfers, and security experts estimate that the information of millions of people, including many higher education institutions, has been affected. The University of Michigan lost internet access and online services for the first week of classes due to the breach, and Hawai'i Community College paid an undisclosed ransom to hackers after 28,000 individuals were hacked. I paid.