...The e-mails arrived Friday evening to some student, faculty and staff accounts. The message carried the subject line "Confirm Your E-mail Address" and stated, "To complete your URI account, you must reply to this email immediately and enter your password here (*********)."...

...On Sunday, Fetherston sent an e-mail to the URI Newsline listserv warning URI e-mail users the message was a scam. The university also blocked the Hotmail and SigNet accounts that sent the message and instituted security measures that prevented users from replying to the message.

As of yesterday the Help Desk said two users had replied to the message before administrators blocked the reply capability. Network administrators locked their accounts until the passwords can be reset.

Campus Police Maj. Stephen Baker said it was unclear if the e-mail was related to the recent thefts of university employees' identify but officials were investigating...

...The URI password scam comes on the heels of an almost identical message sent to University of Cincinnati e-mail users during the weekend, raising the possibility of the scam being a concentrated effort by a team of skilled hackers.