![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/files\/2017\/03\/spam-500x293.jpg\")
<\/p>\n[:en]<\/p>\n
There are reports that some students and personnel have already received this mail in their mailboxes. It is a typical phishing scam\u00a0but uses a different tactic to trick the recipient into divulging personal details like passwords and should not be responded to in any way. That mail was sent by a \u201cthrowaway\u201d outlook.com mail account. It started making its appearance in June last year in Yahoo!Mail accounts.<\/p>\n
According to this e-mail, which claims to be a \u201cServer Message\u201d, telling the potential victim that they recently initiated an action to shut down their e-mail account. The e-mail advises that, if they did not initiate the supposed shut down action, they should click a \u2018Cancel De-activation\u2019 link to restore your account to its normal settings.<\/p>\n
However, the e-mail is not from the university, and no account shut down action has been initiated. The e-mail is just a crude phishing scam designed to steal your university account login details. The scammers hope that at least a few recipients will click the cancel link in the mistaken belief that they must do so to save their account.<\/p>\n
If you do click the link, you will be taken to a fraudulent web page that has been built to emulate a genuine login screen. A form on the page asks you to enter your e-mail address and account password and click a button labelled \u2018Sign in to Cancel De-activation\u201d.\u00a0 After signing in on the fake page, you will be automatically redirected to the university webmail website.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the scammers can collect the login details you entered and use them to hijack your university e-mail account. Once they have gained access to your account, they can use it to send out spam and scam e-mails in your name. (as has been happening in recent weeks)<\/p>\n
E-mail phishing scams like this one are very common. Be very wary of any e-mail that claims that you must click a link or open an attached file to rectify a supposed account problem. It is always safer to log into all of your online accounts by entering the address into your browser\u2019s address bar or via an official app.<\/p>\n
Here is an example of the mail that is in circulation with the dangerous parts removed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]<\/p>\n
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[:en] There are reports that some students and personnel have already received this mail in their mailboxes. It is a typical phishing scam\u00a0but uses a different tactic to trick the recipient into divulging personal details like passwords and should not be responded to in any way. That mail was sent by a \u201cthrowaway\u201d outlook.com mail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20382,29187],"tags":[20381],"class_list":["post-11888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-email","category-security-2","tag-phishing"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 07:35:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11891,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11888\/revisions\/11891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}