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Protect yourself, your information and the University

01 May 2014

Be wary of potential scams and never tell anyone your University password – not even IT Services

Beware of scam emails

A compromised IT account can have severe consequences for your reputation, your work and the whole University.

While our email service captures hundreds of thousands of junk emails per day, some scam (“phishing” or “spearphishing”) messages do occasionally get through. These messages may give you a fake warning about your account and ask you to either reply to the message with your account password, or ask you to click on a link to a malicious website which will either ask you to enter your details, infect your computer or both.
We will never ask you for your password.
 
Some common topics of these scam emails:
  • Email account running out of space (quota)
  • Verifying your account details
  • Accusing you of breaching usage guidelines
  • Warning you that your account will be closed if you do not reply
Even though these emails are often badly written, inaccurate and sent from non-University addresses, some University staff and students have previously fallen victim to these messages and supplied their login details to the scammers, who then used their compromised account to send out junk mail. 
 
More seriously, sending junk mail from your account can affect the entire University’s reputation amongst other organisations’ email services. If a significant amount of junk mail appears to come from our email servers, some organisations may “blacklist” all email from The University of Manchester, meaning that any email sent from any member of University staff would get blocked by their system. 
 
Further to these examples, anyone with your account details could log in to your account and access your personal files.
 
If you think your IT account may have been compromised, please contact the IT Service Desk immediately for advice.
 

More information: