A security breach put local students at risk of identity theft.

Officials said dozens of students at Temple University fell victim to a phishing scam, which is when someone sends an e-mail asking for personal information.

Within an hour of receiving the e-mail, 75 students responded.

Temple University's Internet security officer said the e-mail originated off the coast of West Africa, but it involved a Palestinian account. Its intended purpose was to phish for information from thousands of people connected to Temple University.

"There was a complaint that a user had received this e-mail and was concerned about it. So they brought it to our attention," said Kenneth Ihrer, of Temple's computer security staff.

Ihrer said 5,000 users received the e-mail asking users to confirm their personal information or their account would be disabled. The users were asked to send four items, including their user ID and password information.

"If you go down in the e-mail header, you see the reply-to address. The reply-to address is accountsupgrade2008@live.com. Live.com is part of a Hotmail mail system," Ihrer said.

Ihrer said 75 Temple University users replied. Of those, 24 users' accounts were compromised. Ihere said he shut down those accounts. Students told NBC 10 they were alerted to the scam through text messages and e-mail alerts sent from the Internet security officer on campus.

"It can lead to identity theft. Obviously, they now have the person's account name and their date of birth. Those are two pieces of information you normally wouldn't share with someone," Ihrer said.

Ihrer said Temple University is one of 85 universities that have been hit by the phishing scam. He encouraged people to have strong passwords, words you make up, and use different passwords on different accounts. Never post personal information online when asked to do so.

"Be aware; be conscious of what you're doing," Temple student Mike Cione said. Don't open e-mail if you're not sure who it's from, he added.