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You must have a )] TJ ET BT 61.016 577.870 Td 0.000 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(strong password to keep your personal life personal, and not become a victim of identity theft.)] TJ ET 0.153 0.153 0.153 RG 85.866 560.697 m 85.866 561.110 85.696 561.520 85.404 561.811 c 85.113 562.103 84.703 562.272 84.291 562.272 c 83.878 562.272 83.469 562.103 83.177 561.811 c 82.885 561.520 82.716 561.110 82.716 560.697 c 82.716 560.285 82.885 559.875 83.177 559.584 c 83.469 559.292 83.878 559.122 84.291 559.122 c 84.703 559.122 85.113 559.292 85.404 559.584 c 85.696 559.875 85.866 560.285 85.866 560.697 c f BT 91.016 557.881 Td 1.403 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(Using email or your profile on Facebook, Whatsapp or Google, hackers can and do, extract a huge amount of )] TJ ET BT 91.016 546.892 Td 0.000 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(personal data of your personal "online" life.)] TJ ET 85.866 538.719 m 85.866 539.132 85.696 539.542 85.404 539.833 c 85.113 540.125 84.703 540.294 84.291 540.294 c 83.878 540.294 83.469 540.125 83.177 539.833 c 82.885 539.542 82.716 539.132 82.716 538.719 c 82.716 538.307 82.885 537.897 83.177 537.606 c 83.469 537.314 83.878 537.144 84.291 537.144 c 84.703 537.144 85.113 537.314 85.404 537.606 c 85.696 537.897 85.866 538.307 85.866 538.719 c f BT 91.016 535.903 Td 0.513 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(If you use the same password for multiple online accounts, you run the risk, if this password is hacked, of all your )] TJ ET BT 91.016 524.914 Td 0.000 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(online accounts being compromised.)] TJ ET 85.866 516.741 m 85.866 517.154 85.696 517.564 85.404 517.855 c 85.113 518.147 84.703 518.316 84.291 518.316 c 83.878 518.316 83.469 518.147 83.177 517.855 c 82.885 517.564 82.716 517.154 82.716 516.741 c 82.716 516.329 82.885 515.919 83.177 515.628 c 83.469 515.336 83.878 515.166 84.291 515.166 c 84.703 515.166 85.113 515.336 85.404 515.628 c 85.696 515.919 85.866 516.329 85.866 516.741 c f BT 91.016 513.925 Td 0.739 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(Using a personal name for an online account, the name of the city that you live in, the names of your children or )] TJ ET BT 91.016 502.936 Td 0.000 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(your date of birth, give hackers vital clues for attempting to access your personal data.)] TJ ET 85.866 494.763 m 85.866 495.176 85.696 495.586 85.404 495.877 c 85.113 496.169 84.703 496.338 84.291 496.338 c 83.878 496.338 83.469 496.169 83.177 495.877 c 82.885 495.586 82.716 495.176 82.716 494.763 c 82.716 494.351 82.885 493.941 83.177 493.650 c 83.469 493.358 83.878 493.188 84.291 493.188 c 84.703 493.188 85.113 493.358 85.404 493.650 c 85.696 493.941 85.866 494.351 85.866 494.763 c f BT 91.016 491.947 Td 1.239 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(For an average expert hacker, it is always easy to find passwords that are made up of words from the English )] TJ ET BT 91.016 480.958 Td 0.000 Tw /F4 9.0 Tf [(vocabulary or other languages, using a basic technique called "brute force" or "dictionary" attacks.)] TJ ET BT 61.016 457.999 Td /F1 9.0 Tf [(What makes a password safe?)] TJ ET BT 78.360 438.026 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(1.)] TJ ET BT 91.016 438.010 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(A password at least 8 characters long.)] TJ ET BT 78.360 427.037 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(2.)] TJ ET BT 91.016 427.021 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(The password does not contain information that is easy to find online, such as the date of birth, the telephone )] TJ ET BT 91.016 416.032 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(number, your spouses name, the name of a pet, or a childs name.)] TJ ET BT 78.360 405.059 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(3.)] TJ ET BT 91.016 405.043 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(The password does not contain words found in the dictionary.)] TJ ET BT 78.360 394.070 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(4.)] TJ ET BT 91.016 394.054 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(The password contains special characters like @ # $% ^ &, and numbers.)] TJ ET BT 78.360 383.081 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(5.)] TJ ET BT 91.016 383.065 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(The password uses a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters.)] TJ ET BT 61.016 360.106 Td /F1 9.0 Tf [(A trick that the experts use to create secure passwords:)] TJ ET BT 61.016 340.117 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(Think of a phrase and use the first letters of the words in the phrase.)] TJ ET 85.866 322.944 m 85.866 323.357 85.696 323.767 85.404 324.058 c 85.113 324.350 84.703 324.519 84.291 324.519 c 83.878 324.519 83.469 324.350 83.177 324.058 c 82.885 323.767 82.716 323.357 82.716 322.944 c 82.716 322.532 82.885 322.122 83.177 321.831 c 83.469 321.539 83.878 321.369 84.291 321.369 c 84.703 321.369 85.113 321.539 85.404 321.831 c 85.696 322.122 85.866 322.532 85.866 322.944 c f BT 91.016 320.128 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(For example: )] TJ ET BT 146.033 320.128 Td /F2 9.0 Tf [("In South Africa, a barbecue is called a Braai!")] TJ ET 85.866 311.955 m 85.866 312.368 85.696 312.778 85.404 313.069 c 85.113 313.361 84.703 313.530 84.291 313.530 c 83.878 313.530 83.469 313.361 83.177 313.069 c 82.885 312.778 82.716 312.368 82.716 311.955 c 82.716 311.543 82.885 311.133 83.177 310.842 c 83.469 310.550 83.878 310.380 84.291 310.380 c 84.703 310.380 85.113 310.550 85.404 310.842 c 85.696 311.133 85.866 311.543 85.866 311.955 c f BT 91.016 309.139 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(Take the first letters of each word and the password that is created is )] TJ ET BT 368.144 309.139 Td /F3 9.0 Tf [(ISAabicaB!)] TJ ET 85.866 300.966 m 85.866 301.379 85.696 301.789 85.404 302.080 c 85.113 302.372 84.703 302.541 84.291 302.541 c 83.878 302.541 83.469 302.372 83.177 302.080 c 82.885 301.789 82.716 301.379 82.716 300.966 c 82.716 300.554 82.885 300.144 83.177 299.853 c 83.469 299.561 83.878 299.391 84.291 299.391 c 84.703 299.391 85.113 299.561 85.404 299.853 c 85.696 300.144 85.866 300.554 85.866 300.966 c f BT 91.016 298.150 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(This will be very difficult to guess, but easy to remember.)] TJ ET 85.866 289.977 m 85.866 290.390 85.696 290.800 85.404 291.091 c 85.113 291.383 84.703 291.552 84.291 291.552 c 83.878 291.552 83.469 291.383 83.177 291.091 c 82.885 290.800 82.716 290.390 82.716 289.977 c 82.716 289.565 82.885 289.155 83.177 288.864 c 83.469 288.572 83.878 288.402 84.291 288.402 c 84.703 288.402 85.113 288.572 85.404 288.864 c 85.696 289.155 85.866 289.565 85.866 289.977 c f BT 91.016 287.161 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(At this point, you can decide to make your the Google password is )] TJ ET BT 357.146 287.161 Td /F3 9.0 Tf [(ISAabicaB!-G)] TJ ET BT 414.656 287.161 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(, and Facebook )] TJ ET BT 481.697 287.161 Td /F3 9.0 Tf [(ISAabicaB!-F)] TJ ET BT 91.016 276.172 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(and your university account )] TJ ET BT 205.568 276.172 Td /F3 9.0 Tf [(ISAabicaB!-U)] TJ ET BT 262.574 276.172 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(S and so on.)] TJ ET 85.866 267.999 m 85.866 268.412 85.696 268.822 85.404 269.113 c 85.113 269.405 84.703 269.574 84.291 269.574 c 83.878 269.574 83.469 269.405 83.177 269.113 c 82.885 268.822 82.716 268.412 82.716 267.999 c 82.716 267.587 82.885 267.177 83.177 266.886 c 83.469 266.594 83.878 266.424 84.291 266.424 c 84.703 266.424 85.113 266.594 85.404 266.886 c 85.696 267.177 85.866 267.587 85.866 267.999 c f BT 91.016 265.183 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(There is already a capital letter and a special character )] TJ ET BT 312.110 265.183 Td /F3 9.0 Tf [(\(!\))] TJ ET BT 321.101 265.183 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(, so you just need to add a number to finish off a good )] TJ ET BT 91.016 254.194 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(password like )] TJ ET BT 148.031 254.194 Td /F3 9.0 Tf [(9-ISAabicaB!-US)] TJ ET BT 221.543 254.194 Td /F2 9.0 Tf [(\(9 could be the month you created the password in - for example\))] TJ ET BT 61.016 234.205 Td /F4 9.0 Tf [(You will have already made your password a lot more difficult to hack, and it can be a lot of fun to create.)] TJ ET 0.400 0.400 0.400 rg BT 61.016 215.716 Td /F2 9.0 Tf [(Posted in:News,Phishing,Security,Tips | Tagged:Cyberaware,Cybersecurity,Password,Passwords,Phishing | With 0 )] TJ ET BT 61.016 204.727 Td /F2 9.0 Tf [(comments)] TJ ET q 225.000 0 0 135.000 61.016 493.628 cm /I1 Do Q endstream endobj 8 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype /Type1 /Name /F1 /BaseFont /Helvetica-Bold /Encoding /WinAnsiEncoding >> endobj 9 0 obj << /Type /Font /Subtype 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Phishing attack with subject: “Re-Validate”

Saturday, December 2nd, 2017

With the graduation just around the corner and most students already on holiday, and many of our colleagues already taking a well-deserved break, and collectively we all tend to be a little less vigilant.

The end of the year vacation period is generally a time when phishing attacks on our email accounts drop, and it is speculated that the phishers know there are significantly fewer employees working during the holidays, so there are fewer opportunities for targeted users to actually open malicious attachments.

However spear-phishing attacks increase when the Information technology and “cyber-security”  centres of large enterprises like the university security operations are lightly staffed or understaffed. The scammers know that there is a greater chance for them to gain access to accounts via spear-phishing as the “watchdogs” are fewer.

What is spear-phishing?

Spear-phishing is a targeted form of phishing in which fraudulent emails are sent to specific individuals at an institution like the university in an effort to gain access to confidential information. Often a trustworthy entity is impersonated that uses “urgent” language to requesting sensitive information or actions.

[In August this year the MacEwan University in Canada was targeted when a series of fraudulent emails convinced MacEwan University staff to change electronic banking information for one of the university’s major vendors, resulting in $11.8 million being transferred to criminals.]

The following spear-phishing e-mail is appearing in some student and personnel accounts and it seems to be targeting university accounts specifically as the salutation is a personal name: (in this case your e-mail address, or in some cases your display name in e-mail e.g Wiles, David <dw@sun.ac.za>

The mail will look like this:

~~~

From: Zimbra <infog@adm.orel.ru>
Sent: 01 December 2017 22:15
To: Your Own name <your-e-mail@sun.ac.za>
Subject: Re-Validate

 
Dear your-e-mail@sun.ac.za , 
Your account has exceeded it quota limit as set by Administrator, and you may not be able to send or receive new mails until you Re-Validate your your-e-mail@sun.ac.za account. 
To Re-Validate account@sun.ac.za account, Please CLICK: Re-Validate your-e-mail@sun.ac.za Account
 
~~~
 
If you click on the link you will be taken to a website that will show the following login window where you will be asked to fill in your personal details and password. Once this happen the spear-phishers will have gained control over your email account and will proceed to locate more sensitive information like other e-mail addresses and bank account details, for example. Your e-mail account will then be used to attack other university accounts.


Please be aware of this spear-phishing scam. No university department or division will ever ask you for passwords via e-mail.

[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]

Email

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Posted in E-mail, phishing, Security | Comments Off on Phishing attack with subject: “Re-Validate”

Nigerian 419 Advance Fee scam

Wednesday, November 29th, 2017

A scam in the form of a well-known “Nigerian 419 Advance Fee” mail is appearing in some of our colleagues and students mailboxes this morning.

The mail is rather simple:

Subject is: “Kindly view attach and forward your reply to <a gmail address>”

The mail’s content simply states the same and the attachment is an image of a letter and states that the sender has a large amount of money that they would like to send you.

This is a typical “Nigerian 411 Advance Fee” scam.

Here is how it works:

You receive an unsolicited message that masquerades as some manner of business proposition, request for assistance, notice of a potential inheritance, or opportunity to help a charity but all of the scam messages share a common theme.

The messages all claim that your help is needed to access a very large sum of money and promise that you will receive a significant portion of this money in exchange for your help.

The scammers use a variety of stories to explain why they need your help to access the funds.

  • They may claim that political climate or legal issues preclude them from accessing funds in a foreign bank account and request your help to gain such access.
  • They may claim that your last name is the same as that of the deceased person who owned an account and suggests that you act as the next of kin of this person in order to gain access to the account’s funds.
  • They may claim that a rich businessman, who has a terminal illness, needs your help to distribute his wealth to charity.
  • They may claim that a soldier stationed overseas has discovered a cache of hidden cash left by a fleeing dictator and needs your help to get the money out of the country.

All these scams promise to let you keep a significant percentage of the funds in exchange for your assistance. This is the bait that is used to pull potential victims deeper into the scam. Once a recipient has taken the bait, and initiated a dialogue with the scammers, he or she will soon receive requests for “fees” that the scammer claims are necessary for processing costs, tax and legal fees, bribes to local officials, or other – totally imaginary – fees.

In reality, the supposed funds do not exist and the main purpose of these scam messages is to trick recipients into parting with their money in the form of these advance fees. Fraudulent requests for fees will usually continue until the victim realises he or she is being conned and stops sending money. In some cases, the scammers may gather enough information to access the victim’s bank account directly or steal the victim’s identity.

Typically, advance fee scammers will send many thousands of identical scam messages to recipients all around the world. (as is today’s example) It only takes a few recipients to fall for the claims in the messages to make the operation pay off for the criminals.

What to do if you receive such an Advance Fee email:

It is important that you do not respond to it in any way. The scammers are likely to act upon any response from those they see as potential victims. The best thing to do with these scam messages is to simply delete them.

Send the spam/phishing mail to the following addresses

help@sun.ac.za and sysadm@sun.ac.za.

 Attach the phishing or suspicious mail on to the message if possible. There is a good tutorial on how to do this at the following link (Which is safe) : http://stbsp01.stb.sun.ac.za/innov/it/it-help/Wiki%20Pages/Spam%20sysadmin%20Eng.aspx

  1. Start up a new mail addressed to sysadm@sun.ac.za (CC: help@sun.ac.za)
  2. Use the Title “SPAM” (without quotes) in the Subject.
  3. With this New Mail window open, drag the suspicious spam/phishing mail from your Inbox into the New Mail Window. It will attach the mail as an enclosure and a small icon with a light yellow envelope will appear in the attachments section of the New Mail.
  4. Send the mail.

If you have fallen for the scam:

If you did click on the link of this phishing spam and unwittingly give the scammers your username, e-mail address and password you should immediately go to http://www.sun.ac.za/useradm and change the passwords on ALL your university accounts (making sure the new password is completely different, and is a strong password that will not be easily guessed.) as well as changing the passwords on your social media and private e-mail accounts (especially if you use the same passwords on these accounts.)

IT have set up a website page with useful information on how to report and combat phishing and spam. The address is:

https://blogs.sun.ac.za/it/en/2017/11/reporting-spam-malware-and-phishing/

As you can see the address has a sun.ac.za at the end of the domain name, so it is legitimate. I suggest bookmarking this.

[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]

 

 

Email

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Posted in E-mail, phishing, Security | Comments Off on Nigerian 419 Advance Fee scam

Phishing: Subject “Your Email Address Has Been Compromised”

Wednesday, November 15th, 2017

We’ve had a couple of reports from personnel and students about getting messages with a subject of “Your Email Address Has Been Compromised” (notice the capitalisation of every word, which is one of the signs of phishing)

The scammers have spoofed the recipient (your e-mail address to read info@verify.com) and the sender seems to come from a compromised university account in the USA (address end with an .edu)

The subject says: “Your Email Address Has Been Compromised” and a link Verify HERE is included which takes you to a website ending with a “weebly.com”. It looks already as if the website is offline or has already been blocked by Information Technology, but you should never click on links in mail if the sender is unknown.

Keep in mind, Information Technology will never send you such a mail, telling you that your e-mail address has been compromised. All IT’s communications are bilingual and will always address you personally.

If you get mail like this and you are not sure if it is legitimate or not, you should never click links or respond but rather contact IT telephonically at 808 4367 to verify. 

Information Technology will send you an automated mail IF you have changed your password on the network that is branded, is bilingual, and informs you of a password change, but it is always better to check and make sure especially if you HAVEN’T changed your password or don’t recall if you have changed your password.

Here is an example of the current phishing scam.

 

 

If you have received mail that looks like this please immediately report it to the Information Technology Security Team using the following method:

Send the spam/phishing mail to the following addresses

help@sun.ac.za

…and sysadm@sun.ac.za as well.

 Attach the phishing or suspicious mail on to the message if possible. There is a good tutorial on how to do this at the following link (Which is safe) : http://stbsp01.stb.sun.ac.za/innov/it/it-help/Wiki%20Pages/Spam%20sysadmin%20Eng.aspx

  1. Start up a new mail addressed to sysadm@sun.ac.za (CC: help@sun.ac.za)
  2. Use the Title “SPAM” (without quotes) in the Subject.
  3. With this New Mail window open, drag the suspicious spam/phishing mail from your Inbox into the New Mail Window. It will attach the mail as an enclosure and a small icon with a light yellow envelope will appear in the attachments section of the New Mail.
  4. Send the mail.

If you did click on the link of this phishing spam and unwittingly give the scammers your username, e-mail address and password you should immediately go to http://www.sun.ac.za/useradm and change the passwords on ALL your university accounts (making sure the new password is completely different, and is a strong password that will not be easily guessed.) as well as changing the passwords on your social media and private e-mail accounts (especially if you use the same passwords on these accounts.)

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Phishing: Subject “Unusual Login Attempt”

Monday, October 30th, 2017

A new phishing attempt on staff and students of Stellenbosch University by means of a fake website was launched earlier this week. The website has been blocked by IT in the meantime so you will not be able to access it. 

The mail will be simple with a subject line of “Unusual Login Attempt”. 

The recipient field has been spoofed to hide the sender and recipient and the content of the mail is simply a link that says:

“For Details Verify” (with the Verify links to a website called “stellenboschuniversity.weebly.com”) (See example below)

If you suspect an email is a phishing attempt, please immediately report it to the Information Technology Security Team. With your help, we can block the malicious website as soon as possible and quarantine the compromised sun account from which the email is sent. If you are not sure how to recognise a phishing email, here are a few tips. Also have a look at examples of previous phishing attempts.

Instructions to report a phishing, spam or malware incident.

If you did click on the link of this phishing spam and unwittingly give the scammers your username, e-mail address and password you should immediately go to http://www.sun.ac.za/useradm and change the passwords on ALL your university accounts (making sure the new password is completely different, and is a strong password that will not be easily guessed.) as well as changing the passwords on your social media and private e-mail accounts (especially if you use the same passwords on these accounts.)

[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]

 

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South Africa’s biggest data breach and what to do about it

Thursday, October 19th, 2017

In October South Africa was hit by the largest data breach in its history. The ID numbers, names, gender, ethnicity, home ownership, contact information & estimated income of an estimated 60 million South Africans were leaked online from a website belonging to a real estate company.

The fact that the actual breach occurred in April this year and was only announced in October, should not be of concern, but the fact that the personal information of 60 million of us South Africans is now in the “open” and can be exploited by criminal and scammers worldwide, should be a cause for worry as this is the type of information cybercriminals use for identity theft.

With enough personal information‚ criminals can do damage to a person by illegally opening credit accounts or make bookings using the information included in this database leak. It is an extremely big risk. The great risk is to the individual whose data has been breached.

The following measures have been suggested by experts in the IT security business:

  • Monitor your credit reports. Every time you buy on credit, your credit record is created at the National Credit Regulator (NCR). Credit providers and financial institutions always check credit records (with your permission) for various applications. Check your credit report as often as you can.
  • Do not be afraid to put a freeze on your credit information. A freeze means the credit bureaus can’t release your credit report or any other information in your file without your authorization. With no information, thieves will not be able to open any account in your name.
  • Consider an identity theft protection service. For a fee, some third-party services take credit monitoring a step further and notify you if someone has inquired about credit in your name.
  • Protect your email. Your email address and password, which are often compromised in a data breach, can be a treasure trove for identity thieves.  With these data points, thieves can potentially get access to your banking, and other personal information.
  • It’s also important to use secure passwords with a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols, change passwords often and use different passwords for each of your accounts.

In the wake of the breach, the website ThisIsMe has launched new tools and revealed practical steps that you can take to mitigate the prevalent risks resulting from this explosive breach.  Read more about it on MyBroadband.

[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]

 

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