A Canadian University Gave $11 Million To a Scammer (vice.com) 52
A Canadian university transferred more than $11 million CAD (around $9 million USD) to a scammer that university staff believed to be a vendor in a phishing attack, a university statement published on Thursday states. From a report: Staff at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta became aware of the fraud on Wednesday, August 23, the statement says. According to the university, the attacker sent a series of emails that convinced staff to change payment details for a vendor, and that these changes resulted in the transfer of $11.8 million CAD into bank accounts that the school has traced to Canada and Hong Kong. The school is working with authorities in Edmonton, Montreal, London, and Hong Kong, the statement reads. According to the university, its IT systems were not compromised and no personal or financial information was stolen. A phishing scam is not technically a "hack," it should be noted, and only requires the attacker to convince the victim to send money. The school's preliminary investigation found that "controls around the process of changing vendor banking information were inadequate, and that a number of opportunities to identify the fraud were missed."
As a result (Score:5, Funny)
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keyboards? how quaint
we use touchscreen tablets now
Siri, Alexa and Cortana disagree
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Actually, goal-posts are no longer the de-facto standard for this type of idea-transfer.
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1) Universities don't control the cost of textbooks, publishers do
Professors who write the textbooks that are required for their classes have a non trivial part to play in that cost.
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1) Universities don't control the cost of textbooks, publishers do
Professors require that students use the latest edition of the books, killing the used book market and keeping prices artificially high.
2) A quick look a resident's cost for Canadian universities shows an average tuition of $5428 US and a max of $17808 US.
The average cost of a 4-year college in the US, is, by comparison, at least $23,600, and the most expensive about $43k
The Canadian tuition you quoted is per-year (see official stats here [statcan.gc.ca]
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And? Do you seriously think the most expensive college in the US is 43 grand for the whole shebang?
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they have bankruptcy for student loans (Score:2)
they have bankruptcy for student loans
https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/... [ic.gc.ca]
Canadian Universities not like US (Score:2)
With the cost of tuition and text books, people should be scamming them.
Have you looked at the cost of tuition in Canada? It is far, far less than the US and now even the UK. At UAlberta the typical total tuition costs (all union, transit etc. fees included) for a Canadian (resident or citizen) student taking a full course load are ~$8k/year for science - and those are Canadian dollars so about US$6k. If you want accommodation and food in a residence the cost rises to just under $16k/year (CAD). You can do the calculation here [ualberta.ca]. The institute in question, Grant McEwan, should b
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Maybe if you're not taking labs. I graduated from there a long time ago and had science semesters over that amount.
This number is deceivingly low. Add a couple chem or bio labs that most science programs require and you'll easily hit 10k. Engineering or any professional degree is significantly more.
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It's even cheaper if you're in-province, actually. I think I paid just about $100/credit, and a typical engineering load was 36-39 credits a semester. So it was under $8K Canadian a year. Arts and Sciences with 2
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How about a comparison of the quality of their graduates?
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How about a comparison of the quality of their graduates?
US graduates, at least in physics, have to spend several years taking a lot of courses to get to the same level that a Canadian graduate can get to with far fewer courses. The US system provides a slightly broader but very much shallower education which makes US graduates far weaker than comparable graduates from Canada or Europe when it comes to knowledge of the subject they graduated in. This is why the US needs such extensive graduate programs for MSc/PhD students to bring them up to the level to compet
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Yep, it's only fair, universities have been scamming students for generations - that does seem to be tailing off though...
Re: Universities deserve to be scammed (Score:2)
It's CAD, so the conversion is probably wrong. It's more like $82.50 USD.
How is this any different? (Score:1)
So much research these days is bunk, with stats and results skewed to support predetermined results or conclusions. Worse yet when someone gets a grant without the intention of just bullshitting, not being able to determine a result and skews it to justify funding.
Granted there is sort of a reddit or imgur of research papers but it's
Re:How is this any different? (Score:5, Informative)
Not really any different than all the shysters applying for grants for research projects at any University and providing bullshit results for the funding and additional funding?
Eh? Have you ever applied for a grant?
1) Grant application goes through a peer review -- so at the very least you need to convince ~5 peers and at least 1 program officer that your research is worthy of funding.
2) 95% of money goes to the university and to students or postdocs (professors can only pay themselves in the summer for up to 2 months at most)
3) You have to do annual reports, follow a bunch of rules on anything you buy, fill out an ungodly number of conflict-of-interest forms.
I could go on. But it is really, really different from just getting the money, I assure you.
Depends who's spinning (Score:2, Insightful)
A phishing scam is not technically a "hack,"
Unless you're Clinton's campaign man Podesta or the DNC, in which case it's a Super Powerful Russian Hack That Only Trump Could Have Payed For.
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ah, still butthurt that Trump dealings with Moscow keep on piling up?
No, still highly amused that anonymous coward trolls think they're scoring some sort of rhetorical points in their safe space echo chamber by continuing to trot out the delusional narrative that Clinton lost the election, and the Democrats over years have lost nearly a thousand legislative seats and most of the governorships and both houses of congress, because Trump was working with the Russians ... in some way that nobody can cite, and for which there is no evidence.
No surprise that he's already begun to done so though.
Really! Please, do tell. Which people
Apparently this is popular (Score:3)
My city [kob.com] fell for that one.
A little education goes a long way (Score:1)