INFORMATION: Recent Phishing emails from 'Web Support Team'

INFORMATION: Recent Phishing emails from 'Web Support Team'

We have been targeted by further phishing emails - please be on your guard.

 

What is happening?

Recently, there have been some examples of “phishing” emails that have tried to deceive users into divulging personal data.   If you have received such an email please do not respond to the email and delete it immediately.  It will not be a genuine email from the University of Aberdeen.  If you reply, your computing account and email could be compromised and you could potentially receive thousands of SPAM messages. 

A recent example of this type of phishing email is listed below:

We regret to announce to you that we will be making some vital maintainance on our school website. During this process you might have login problems in signing into your online account, but to prevent this you have to confirm your account immediately after you receive this notification.

To confirm and to keep your account active during and after this process, please reply to this message with the below account information.

Failure to do this might cause a permanent deactivation of your user account from our database to enable us create more spaces for new users and to prevent junk and spam emails.

OUR EMAIL ACCOUNT VERIFICATION

  • Username:
  • Password:
  • re-confirm password:
  • Date of birth:

Your account shall remain active after you have completed the verification process as instructed above.

Thanks for bearing with us.

Web Support Team

This is NOT a genuine email.

What should you do?

Please be on your guard for phishing emails.  Phishing emails are designed to maliciously harvest personal details from you to either compromise your email account or gain access to other personal data, such as banking details.  We have in the past produced information on how to spot a phishing email and you can find out more by visiting this University website http://www.abdn.ac.uk/dit/staff/news/index_1750.php 

DIT or any genuine service would never send such unsolicited emails to you, requesting that you reply with password details.  If in doubt, always contact the service directly they will always provide another method of communication.   If you have already responded to one of these emails and provided personal information, please change your password immediately and contact the DIT Service Desk.