Students across Berkeley Unified School District received what appeared to be a legitimate job offer over email on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. The email, which impersonated a district staff member, was later identified as a scam and deleted from BUSD student accounts by the district’s technology department.
“I almost applied (for the position). It seemed believable because it was from a BUSD teacher email address, and it looked very professional,” Stella Athanasiou, a Berkeley High School sophomore said.
The email version Athanasiou received was specifically addressed to Berkeley International High School (BIHS) students, which made the fake job opportunity seem legitimate to Athanasiou because she is a BIHS student.
According to Bradley Hilton, BUSD’s technology supervisor, the district relies primarily on spam and phishing protections embedded into district Gmail. In this incident, a staff member’s account was compromised using a method known as “credential hacking.” The compromised account was then used to send students a link to a Google Form that collected personal information. After students submitted their information, the hackers then contacted responders via text message.
“Attacks of this nature are particularly difficult for monitoring systems to detect and can also be difficult for recipients to identify as phishing,” Hilton said.
Because communications moved outside of district Gmail, BUSD’s technology department could no longer monitor them. The hackers used personal email addresses and phone numbers submitted through the form to continue communicating with students. “It is important to be particularly careful with communications received from unknown or unexpected senders,” Hilton said.
BUSD’s news website published an article on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, warning students and parents of scam emails that had been sent during the previous week. The hackers emails used subject lines including, “Mrs. Traci – Items Available for Sale,” “New Internship_Job_Description for Stu & Staff,” and “Exciting Online Summer Part-Time Opportunity for High School Students!”
Common red flags for scam emails include tactics that demand immediate action, such as asking whether a recipient is available “right away,” unsolicited opportunities, fake event invitations, and QR code scans.
Freya Ramesh, a BHS sophomore, nearly applied for the position. “I did actually open the application. When I did, I thought, ‘Wait, this is such a good opportunity’,” Ramesh said.
Ramesh explained that she was enticed by the proposed four hundred dollars per week that the email promised in exchange for completing simple tasks like sorting paperwork on her own terms. She avoided applying after the email asked for her bank account information, which seemed suspicious to her.
The increase in phishing attempts targeting school emails has also raised questions about students’ digital literacy and their phishing recognition. “Digital literacy is more about how humans are acting to take advantage of you, and and preying on your sort of natural human propensities, rather than about computers,” Peter Seibel, a computer science teacher at BHS, said. He explained that technology makes it easier for strangers to contact people online, which can make it difficult to recognize when an interaction is suspicious.
Seibel highlighted that while many BHS computer science courses cover topics like privacy and the role of technology in society, basic digital safety should be taught to all students.
“Digital literacy is an important part of keeping our users informed and safe, and is increasingly crucial as the sophistication and frequency of these types of attacks increases,” Seibel said.
As phishing attempts continue to target students, BUSD is looking at ways to strengthen its technological protections and prevention efforts. The technology department is currently evaluating third-party email filtering tools, working with the Alameda County Office of Education to implement phishing education programs for staff and students, and re-evaluating the current rules and policies governing student email accounts. As these scams become harder to detect, both stronger protections and the ability to recognize them are becoming increasingly relevant.