A bogus e-mail has circulated asking Penn State students for personal information to "update your PSU e-mail now," and administrators are warning students against possible identity theft.

The message, sent through Yahoo!, Google Mail and eLion, asks students to provide their e-mail usernames and passwords in order to keep their accounts.

"Don't get caught in the scam," Robin Anderson, director of multimedia teachings, said. "There's nothing the university can do."

Anderson said she hadn't heard of any specific student falling for the scam.

If a student did fall for the scam, Anderson recommended he or she change his or her password immediately.

The university is attempting to make students more aware of the dangers of phishing e-mails to avoid future problems, Anderson said.

"No official university letter will ask for e-mail user ID, password, social security number or any personally identifiable information," Anderson said.

This phishing message isn't exclusive to Penn State students. The scam has been common throughout universities across the United States, Anderson said.

The difficulty of catching the predators is because these e-mails originate from underground crime syndicates in places such as Russia, Bulgaria, Israel and Nigeria, she said.

These "shadows of the night," as Anderson described them, hack into surrogate computers to avoid tracking by police. The biggest danger the hackers pose, other than personal identity theft, is the ability to access university information, she said.

One student expressed concern over the possibility of identity theft.

"If you lose your student ID, you pretty much lose your life," Bailey Reeves (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) said.

Others were less caught up in the issue.

"I'm not worried about losing my identity," said Jerry Song (freshman-division of undergraduate studies). "Just don't get drunk and look through your e-mail."