Multiple Evanston Township High School students received phishing emails beginning Wednesday, July 22, offering a fake part-time job that asked for their names, personal email addresses, and bank information.

The scam emails, sent from at least two compromised ETHS student accounts, promised $550 for two to three hours of work done three times a week. They were signed "Human Resource, Evanston Township High School" (note the missing plural, a grammatical error common in scam emails) and included a Google Form link designed to harvest personal data.

The first email arrived July 22, according to Evanston Now. A second email advertising the same fake job went out from a different student account and was discovered Friday, July 24. Recipients of the second message were blind-copied, suggesting it reached many students at once.

District 202 Director of Communications Reine Hanna said the district removed the messages from its systems and suspended the compromised account on July 22.

"Phishing attempts are unfortunately a common part of the digital environment in which we all operate," Hanna said in a statement Thursday, July 23. "In this case, there were several clear indications that the message was fraudulent, including the unusual language and requests for personal information."

Hanna called the incident a "routine cybersecurity matter" and said it was not connected to the June 7 ransomware attack that forced ETHS to close for two days and knocked out phone service for nearly three weeks. That attack, as we reported July 3, is still under investigation with the FBI and has continued to disrupt school operations into July, delaying the senior parking lottery and forcing all student-athletes to re-register for sports.

The Evanston Roundtable reported the phishing scam arrived roughly six weeks after the ransomware attack, as the district continues rebuilding its digital infrastructure ahead of the 2026-27 school year.

Hanna said ETHS routinely provides guidance to students and staff about identifying and reporting phishing attempts. The district has not disclosed how many students received the emails or whether anyone submitted personal information through the fraudulent Google Form.