Phishing

Phishing (Homophonic from "fishing") identifies methods gain access to the digital identity (most often usernamne + password) of a user. The goal is to (identity theft) obtain unauthorized access to protected data or resources.

In the case of university accounts, the attacker gains access to university resources (for example computing time) or protected data stores, for example unpublished research data. An attacker can also try to mimic a university associate, e.g. to commit fraud against other victims.

Typical Phishing Mails

Phishing mails typically pretend to provide important information that requires urgent action. Some of the phishing messages may even look very authentic including making use of the university logo.

Typical cases are

• Information about reaching a resource/storage limit (webmail quota, etc.).  The user is requrested to login at a certain web page to prevent account lock or resize their mailbox (the Computing Center does not lock accounts when storage allocations are exceeded).
• Some mails inform you of a service upgrade or update requiring a password update (when such mails are sent from the Computing Center, these are always digitally signed).

Given that you will also receive legitimate messages with similar content ("Mailbox full"), distinguishing phishing mails from legitimate mails is important. Usually, there are unambiguous indicators to facility this.

Phishing Prevention

• Always take care to check the sender adress of emails. Note that the sender name is easily forged. But also remember, that it is possible to forge sender addresses, too.
• Never follow links from emails without checking the link's target address. Note that the displayed text maybe different from the link's target site. The link's target is usually displayed when you hover the mouse over the link
• Always check the identity of a website before entering username and password.
• Never use your university account passwords on websites outside of the university.
• Never enter your username and password on insecure web pages (lock symbol).