---
title: "Even the Smartest Among Us Get Phished | DuoCircle"
description: "If you want bona fide proof that someone is smart, what would you look for? A medical degree? A PhD? How about a Nobel Prize? Yes."
image: "https://www.duocircle.com/images/og-default.png"
canonical: "https://www.duocircle.com/blog/phishing-protection/even-the-smartest-among-us-get-phished/"
---

Quick Answer

Intelligence and education don't prevent phishing. Nobel laureate and economist Paul Krugman publicly stated he likely fell for a phishing call claiming hackers had downloaded illegal material on his Wi-Fi, a classic authority-impersonation pattern. Academics are a rising target via the 'Scholar Scam,' where threat actors offer fake publishing opportunities to early-career researchers. Researchers and professionals don't have time to vet every message manually. Cloud-based phishing protection scans messages in the background in a fraction of a second, can be deployed in around 10 minutes with no hardware or software to buy, and protects an entire department for a low per-user monthly cost.

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![Get Phished](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2020/01/spf-validator-7391.jpg) 

If you want bona fide proof that someone is smart, what would you look for? A medical degree? A PhD? How about a Nobel Prize? Yes. If someone has won a Nobel Prize, it’s pretty safe to assume they’re smart. But, _smart enough to avoid getting phished_? Maybe not, because that’s exactly what happened recently.

According to [Yahoo News](https://news.yahoo.com/nobel-laureate-paul-krugman-said-155654952.html), “Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said he likely fell for a **phishing scam**.” Yep, that [Paul Krugman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul%5FKrugman). “The Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for The New York Times.” He knows economics. Email security not so much.

[![phishing scam](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2020/01/spf-record-7392.jpg)](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2020/01/spf-record-7392.jpg)

According to the article, “New York Times columnist Paul Krugman tweeted Wednesday that he received a phone call indicating that hackers downloaded child pornography on his WiFi network. _The incident appears to be a case of phishing, where scammers pose as an authority or service provider in order to trick people into disclosing personal information_.”

_Apparently hackers targeting smart people with phishing attacks is now a thing_. Such is the case of the “Scholar Scam” in which phishing artists prey on academics. According to an article on [Media Post](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/345517/scholar-scam-phishing-artists-prey-on-academics.html), academics “are being preyed on by bad actors who offer them an unusual product: a chance to publish.”

As the article points out, “You’d think that people with advanced education would be smarter than to fall for a phishing scam like that. But younger people, early career researchers (ECRs), are especially prone to it.” Of course it’s not entirely their fault. “One problem is that even legitimate publishers sometimes use email to recruit authors.” So, what are all these smart people supposed to do to protect themselves?

[![phishing protection](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2020/01/spf-record-check-7393.jpg)](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2020/01/spf-record-check-7393.jpg)

The answer is cloud-based [phishing protection](/email/phishing-protection) software from DuoCircle. Researchers and academics don’t have the time to investigate every email they receive to determine if it’s legitimate or not. _Cloud-based phishing protection software does that for them, in the background, in a fraction of second, so they don’t have to_. And phishing protection from [DuoCircle](/) could protect everyone in the department for just pennies per user per month. Oh, and _it could start doing it in about 10 minutes. Without any hardware or software to buy_.

If you want people to think you’re smart, win a Nobel Prize. If you want to actually be smart, get yourself **phishing protection** from DuoCircle. It’s a hell of a lot easier (and quicker too).

![Brad Slavin](https://media.mailhop.org/dmarcreport/images/team/brad-slavin.jpg) 

Brad Slavin 

General Manager

General Manager at DuoCircle. Product strategy and commercial lead across the email security portfolio.

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