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Fraudulent activities related to the ‘stealing’ of student data

15 October 2021 | Story Department Communication and Marketing

Dear Student

Nationally, there are fraudulent activities related to the ‘stealing’ of student data enabled by

1. the sharing of student login credentials with other parties;

2. national mobile data service providers clamping down on the misuse of data allocations by universities to students; and

3. students misusing data allocations made to them.

The University of the Free State (UFS) cannot unblock you if you are blocked by a service provider for fraudulent activity.

Managing your credentials and passwords is your responsibility.

For more details, please read the following message.

Your digital identity is very important and has a very direct influence on not only your digital life, but also has a very direct influence on your private life.

The following is a more detailed explanation of this statement:

Your digital identity is the key to unlocking all forms of access to digital services such as bank accounts, access to private digital services, and access to the learning materials at the university. All of this is controlled through two very simple ‘things’, being your login code and the password attached to the specific login code.

At the point of first registration as a student, a unique student number is allocated to the student. This is a unique number that will identify you as a person throughout your academic journey and will also ‘live on’ for many years thereafter, or for as long as there is an active relationship between you and the university.

We, as the university, do not re-use these unique numbers and they are active for life. This is the manner in which the university identifies you as a unique individual and we link ALL other digital services to this number, also the provision of data to enable your academic journey.

When you lose control over your login credentials, you, personally, are immediately exposed – firstly as an adult, and secondly, in your private capacity. At this point, there is very little the UFS can do to assist you in regaining control over your digital identity.

Recently, one of the national mobile data vendors uncovered a fraudulent syndicate that purchases a student’s credentials (login code and password) and then literally takes over your private life, using your credentials to enter into agreements on your behalf, for which you are then personally accountable. Apart from the foregoing, the university’s monitoring systems also indicate that there is widespread sharing of login credentials among other students (not registered at the UFS) and also with other external parties such as friends, family, etc.

It is important to note that these activities are fraudulent by nature. As a law-abiding institution, the university is also obligated to report these activities to the South African Police Service (SAPS), which will result in an investigation aligned to criminal activities. This is not a situation where the UFS can support the implied individual; it will be a personal criminal matter. The crux of the matter is that the single student is now exposed to the full force of the law in terms of fraudulent actions, which can result in criminal cases against the student – personally.

From the perspective of the national mobile data operators, they also monitor the use and abuse of their national infrastructures and will protect their interests in this regard. In line with this, the UFS – through the GlobalProtect VPN solution – was fully in control of the allocation of pre-defined monthly data allocations to the student community and could manage students who misused the facilities internally without the national/criminal elements added to it. This is no longer the situation.

At national level, the mobile data providers do not follow a very strict regime whereby they allow the use of data up to the limits defined by each of the universities in South Africa. Once that specific level has been reached, the relevant student (customer) will be cut off at the level of the provider and will not receive any data access for the rest of that month.

Should you (as an example) be a student who allows other parties to mimic you as a registered student, your allocated data can be exhausted in a single day, leaving you stranded for the rest of that month. At that point you will then personally have to purchase additional data to enable you to engage academically with the UFS. This has a very critical spin-off effect. Students who run out of data for whatever reason, can no longer claim that the university should foot the bill for additional data, as records will show that ‘other parties’ were allowed to digitally engage with the UFS. These records are kept and can be used to support the stance of the university as a whole.

In this regard, the UFS departs from the notion that the academic programme of a student needs to be supported, where the costs of aspects such as access data is taken care of, given very specific limits imposed on the university as a whole. These aspects are directly linked to the sustainability of the ‘grant’ in terms of overall affordability, the management of the facility, and lastly, that it is used in support of the academic journey of the student. The intent here is not to provide any data for the pursuance of lifestyle matters, such as certain social media activities, etc. As far as possible, we are in constant negotiation with the Institutional Student Representative Council (ISRC) to ensure that the university is in line with the specific student needs related to academic services. These are ongoing discussions where the student voice is heard and acted on.

In accordance with the foregoing, the matter is no longer in the hands of the UFS as the sole provider, but control over this is now also monitored and managed at a level where South African universities are no longer fully in charge. This is a very unfortunate matter brought about by the misuse of the facilities by certain individuals who are not interested in the well-being of our students. The situation is what it is, and as the accountable party, the UFS will continue to play a critical role in this regard.

When confronted with any matter related to the loss of data, students are invited to contact the ICT Service Desk at 051 401 2000, who will then determine if the login credentials have been shared or not, and to support the student where there are legitimate issues to be dealt with. Please note that ICT Services has very well-kept access records per student, and if there are other technical reasons why connectivity was lost, ICT Services will assist the student to regain access to the teaching and learning facilities of the UFS.

Fair to say, if any evidence exists that login credentials have been shared, it is not a typical hack event; the UFS cannot assist the student by intervening in the contract agreement with the mobile data provider on behalf of the student, as the contract holder remains the student.

News Archive

Open letter from Prof Jonathan Jansen to all UFS students

2014-02-22

Dear Students of the University of the Free State

In the past four years there has emerged a new consensus on the three campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS) about the things that divide us – such as racism, sexism and homophobia. Students and campus leaders have worked hard to develop this new consensus in residences and in the open spaces on campus. There can be no doubt that new bonds of friendship have developed across the markers of race, ethnicity, class, religion and sexual orientation. I bear witness to these new solidarities every day on the campus.

You chose a white student to head up the transformation portfolio on the SRC. You chose a black captain to head up the university’s first team in rugby. You chose a white “prime” as head of residence to lead a predominantly black men’s residence. You chose a South African woman of Indian descent as Rag Queen and last week, a black student from Cape Town as the men’s Rag winner—choices not possible and never made before in our campus history. Many of you have intimate friends who come from different social or cultural or religious backgrounds. You learn together, share rooms together, pray together and party together. In other words, in the day to day workings of this university campus, you have demonstrated to campus, city and country that we can overcome the lingering effects of racism and other maladies in this new generation. You have helped create a university community inclusive of people of diverse religions, abilities, class and sexual orientation.

I have said this repeatedly that from time to time this new consensus will be tested – when a minority of students, and they are a small and dwindling minority, still act as if these are the days of apartheid. And when that consensus is tested as it was this week, and as it will be tested in the future, only then we will be able to assess the strength and durability of our progress in creating a new South African campus culture of human togetherness based on respect, dignity and embrace.

The real test of our leadership, including student leadership, is how we respond when our transformation drive is threatened.

Let me say this: I have absolute faith in you, as students of this great university, to stand together in your condemnation of these vile acts of violence and to move together in your determination to maintain the momentum for the Human Project of the University of the Free State. We have come too far to allow a few criminals to derail what you have built together in recent years.

There will, no doubt, be unscrupulous people on all sides of the political spectrum wanting to milk this tragedy for their own narrow purposes. There will be false information, rumours and exaggerations by those who wish to inflame a bad situation to gain mileage for their agendas. That is inevitable in a country that is still so divided.

I ask you, through all of this, to keep perspective. Two or ten or even twenty students behaving badly do not represent 30,000 students; a minority of violent and hateful persons do not represent the ideals, ambitions and commitments of the majority. At the same time, let us be realistic – anyone who thinks you can drive transformation without resistance clearly does not understand the difficult process of change.

The events of the week remind us, however, that we still have a long road to walk in deepening social and academic transformation at our university. Yes, we have invested hundreds of hours in training and mentorship; we have created new structures – such as the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice – to capture the energy and imagination of students driving transformation; we have created many opportunities for students to study and travel on this and other continents to enable cross-cultural learning; we have established formal and informal opportunities to dialogue about difficult issues on and off campus between students and their leaders; and we crafted new curricula to enable teaching and learning on the big questions of our times.

But this is clearly not enough, and so I have decided on the following immediate next steps:

We will meet for several hours next week to think about how we can deepen the transformation of our university after this terrible incident.
We will arrange a University Assembly on the events of the past week so that we speak with one voice on human wrongs and to re-commit to human rights and we will continue with open forum discussions during the months to come.
We will review the entire spectrum of programmes, from orientation to residence life to the undergraduate curriculum, to determine how effective our interventions really are in reaching all students with respect to basic issues of human rights.
We will review our media and communications strategy to determine how far and deep our messages on human rights travel across all sectors of the university community. In this regard it is important that the campus be blanketed on a regular basis with our condemnation of human wrongs and our commitment to human rights.
We will commission the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice to review the events of the past week and make recommendations on how we can improve the campus environment so that all students are protected from harm inside residences, classrooms and in open spaces of the campus.
We will take the questions raised during this week into the academic community and to the general staff of the university so that all personnel also engage with our own roles and responsibilities with respect to campus transformations.
We undertake to make annual report-backs on transformation to all stakeholders in public forums so that students and staff and external communities can track the progress of the university on matters of human rights on campus.

I wish to thank my staff for acting firmly as soon as this tragic event came to our attention. We worked through the night to find and identify the perpetrators. We traced the two students and immediately handed them to the police. They were expelled. And throughout this process we offered counselling and support to the victim of this violent act.

The two former students were expelled and will now face justice in the criminal courts. It is hoped that in the course of time they will come to their senses and seek restoration and reconciliation with the student they so callously harmed. They are not part of the university community anymore.

That is the kind of university we are.

Jonathan D Jansen
Vice-Chancellor and Rector
University of the Free State
20 February 2014

Note: The use of the word ‘campus’ refers to all three campuses of the UFS, namely the Bloemfontein Campus, South Campus and Qwaqwa Campus.

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