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聽A compromise through a successful phishing campaign is still one of the easiest ways for an attacker to get in.聽Phishing emails are still聽prevalent, so it's really important that聽we聽all learn to easily identify them.
When reading your email, look out for the following:
- A sense of:
- Urgency鈥� makes you feel like you have to do something quickly, so you don鈥檛 take the time to wonder if the email is suspicious.
- Fear鈥� for example, if you don鈥檛 click on the link, your account will be deleted, or you will be fined.
- Promise of reward鈥� lottery win notifications, or 鈥淚 am the widow of a rich person鈥� type of email.
- Guilt or sympathy鈥� 鈥淚 am dying of鈥︹�� type of email.
- So, if an email makes you feel:聽guilty,听panicky,听afraid, or聽greedy, stop and ask yourself why. It鈥檚 probably a phishing email.
- 鈥�To鈥� and 鈥�From鈥� address 鈥� these can be trivially forged and show false information. Often the 鈥楾o鈥� address isn鈥檛 even your email address; a legitimate email would be addressed to your actual email address.
- Web link鈥� check to see if the link is in the 果冻影院 domain (ucl.ac.uk), it could look like a legitimate 果冻影院 URL but check by hovering over it as it could be going somewhere else entirely.
- Asking you to聽respondwith your聽username补苍诲/辞谤听password鈥� no legitimate email will ask you to do this.
- 鲍苍别虫辫别肠迟别诲听attachment鈥� some phishing emails come with attachments that when opened will compromise your computer.
- Headers补苍诲听signatures鈥� these can be forged; phishing emails often use them to appear more legitimate.
The consequences of responding to a phishing email (or opening an attachment in a phishing email) are that an attacker can steal your information and/or take control of your machine.
If you are ever unsure whether an email is a phishing email or not, before you click or respond, just ask us via .