The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has denied rumors that unapproved users are contacting students directly through the university’s portal, showing their academic standing and requesting money to finish unfinished carryover courses.
The university called the allegations completely untrue and reaffirmed that its portal is still secure in a statement released on Wednesday by Ibrahim Sheme, NOUN’s Director of Media and Publicity.
According to the statement: “The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has become aware of a rumor that some individuals have been contacting students directly through the university’s portal, displaying their current status and asking for funds to settle their unfinished carryover courses. The Management was shown a screenshot of a chat that appeared to be between the University and one of the impacted students.
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“The management would like to notify all NOUN students and the public at large that the university is not aware of any portal hacking and has not requested payment from any of its students in order to settle any outstanding carryover course balances. The aforementioned request was fraudulent and, in our opinion, the product of dishonest people who were anxious to scam gullible university students.
We have taken strong precautions to further secure our portal, and as far as we know, it has not been hacked.
NOUN students ought to disregard the aforementioned request. In order to take appropriate action against the source of the false information, anyone who receives such a request should notify their Study Center.
