Category: Phishing

More phishing…slow down for email links

Mark Smith / / Advice, Phishing

There seems to be another round of phishing hitting University email addresses at the moment.

I’ve seen them with subjects like ‘Last Warning’ and ‘Mail Quota Exceeded’ in the last few days.

What gives these messages away as phish is two things:

1. The links to click on have no ‘lincoln.ac.uk’ in them.

2. They both ask you to do something that looks urgent

If you think you need to click on a link in an email quickly it’s time to pause for thought…

A little thought could save you (or someone else) some wasted time and effort or worse.

Do you get unwanted sales/marketing calls?

Mark Smith / / Advice, Phishing

It seems to be a fact of life these days that many people get calls and texts selling stuff – the common ones are accident and payment protection (PPI) claims.

These are often organisations who have somehow got your number and want to sell your details on for a profit.

There doesn’t seem to be much you can do about stopping this, but there are a couple of things to try:

1. Register your phone number with the Telephone Preference Service TPS: http://www.tpsonline.org.uk

This doesn’t seem to make much difference as the organisations making the calls don’t care.

2. Complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/marketing/calls.aspx

It’s hard to see if anything comes from the ICO, although they are now imposing huge fines, it looks like they have only scratched the surface of the problem

Until this kind of thing become a criminal offence it’s hard to see anything changing.

Plenty of Phish?

Mark Smith / / Advice, Phishing

Looks like a new round of Phishing is hitting University email accounts.

It looks something like:

===

Subject: Attention: Account User

Attention: Account User

This email is being sent to you because of violation security breach that was detected by our servers.

Our server detected that one of the messages you received from a contact has already infected your mail with a dangerous virus. You can no longer be allowed to send messages or files to other users to prevent the spread of virus to other users.

Please follow the link below to perform maintenance work needed to improve the protection of the email for us to verify and have your account cleared against this virus.

Failure to comply will lead to the termination of your Account in the next 24 hours.

[LINK REMOVED]

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

University of Lincoln

====

DON’T CLICK ON THE LINK

If you did click and entered your details please contact ICT Helpdesk on x6500 or helpdesk@lincoln.ac.uk

Phishing – they’re fishing for your password

Mark Smith / / Phishing

We often get emails sent to staff something like this:

Your mailbox has exceeded limit please  CLICK HERE: (link removed)  to validate your e-mail

Thanks
System Administrator

These are sent by unscrupulous people who are trying to get you to enter your user name and password. Sometimes they look very authentic.

My advice is not to click on links in emails. Always type in any link yourself or use a bookmark/shortcut.

If you do accidentally enter your details please contact the ICT Service Desk as soon as possible (x6500 or helpdesk@lincoln.ac.uk)