Faculty and staff members who receive the message should delete it and should not give out their ID or PIN. The message is being circulated by an unknown user to extract personal information.
The following is a copy of the email being sent to various USC professors:

From: Rick Schroeder [mailto:rbschroeder_vip_sc_edu@hotmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 5:23 PM
To:
Subject: VIP ID and PIN verification Urgent!

Hello this is Rick Schroeder with the VIP and Blackboard services from USC-Columbia,

It appears that someone unauthorized is using your VIP account.

For the safety of your account, please e-mail your ID number and PIN number back to this account so we can verify your usage. If you do not e-mail us your account, we will be forced to delete the account, and you will have to begin to create an account, which could take days and maybe even weeks. With the end of the semester approaching quickly, we surely do not want to do this. To avoid this trouble, again please send your VIP ID number and pin number back to this e-mail address.

Thank you for your cooperation,
Rick Schroeder

USC Computer Services, a network manager, or IT contacts will never ask anyone to send any type of personal information across e-mail as a matter of security and protection. Computer Services’ policy is not to ask for such information.

If asked for this information, be very suspicious. Disregard any type of message that might look phony (such as a hotmail.com or yahoo.com address). Faculty who receive any message such as this one should notify Computer Services as soon as possible at 7-1800 or cshelpdesk@sc.edu.

The best advice: Never give out personal information across the telephone or by e-mail unless you know exactly where and to whom the information is going.

11/04