The University of Aberdeen is receiving a large amount of phishing and virus emails today - Update
What is happening?
University staff and postgraduate mailboxes were the target of a major phishing attack this morning. Many of you will have received fake messages, with an attachment, that appeared to come from your own mailbox.
Phishing emails are sent on a daily basis to the University and the vast majority are blocked by our mail filters before they reach your mailbox. Nonetheless, some do slip through. When they do, be assured that we always take immediate action to address the issue.
The specific actions we’ve taken to stop today’s virus emails:
- All emails containing the subject line “attachement” [sic] are now being automatically rejected. This rule will be removed once we are satisfied the current phishing attack is over.
- We will automatically delete the virus email from all University mailboxes.
- The virus is a “zero-day virus” which means that we have to wait for our virus signatures to be updated before it can be permanently blocked. We have reported the virus to Microsoft and this update should happen later later today.
As with any unsolicited email, we ask all staff and students to be vigilant. Further advice can be found on a former IT News item on StaffNet at https://www.abdn.ac.uk/staffnet/news/7822/.
Should you have any concerns or queries please contact the IT Service Desk:
Login to MyIT: https://myit.abdn.ac.uk
Email: servicedesk@abdn.ac.uk