{"id":12625,"date":"2017-12-02T09:55:32","date_gmt":"2017-12-02T07:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/?p=12625"},"modified":"2017-12-13T14:46:48","modified_gmt":"2017-12-13T12:46:48","slug":"phishing-attack-with-subject-re-validate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/2017\/12\/phishing-attack-with-subject-re-validate\/","title":{"rendered":"[:en]Phishing attack with subject: “Re-Validate”[:]"},"content":{"rendered":"

[:en]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The end of the year vacation period is generally a time when phishing attacks\u00a0on\u00a0our 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.<\/p>\n

However spear-phishing attacks increase when the Information technology and “cyber-security”\u00a0 centres of large enterprises like the university\u00a0security 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.<\/p>\n

What is spear-phishing?<\/p>\n

Spear-phishing is a targeted form of phishing in which fraudulent emails are sent to specific individuals at an institution like the university\u00a0in an effort to gain access to confidential information. Often a trustworthy entity is impersonated\u00a0that uses\u00a0“urgent” language\u00a0to requesting sensitive information or actions.<\/p>\n

[In August this year the MacEwan University in Canada was targeted when\u00a0a series of fraudulent emails convinced MacEwan University staff to change electronic banking information for one of the university\u2019s major vendors, resulting in $11.8 million being transferred to criminals.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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><\/p>\n

The mail will look like this:<\/p>\n

~~~<\/p>\n

From:<\/b> Zimbra <infog@adm.orel.ru>
\n Sent:<\/b> 01 December 2017 22:15
\n To:<\/b> Your Own name <your-e-mail@sun.ac.za>
\n Subject:<\/b> Re-Validate <\/span><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Dear your-e-mail@sun.ac.za ,\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n 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.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n To Re-Validate account@sun.ac.za account, Please CLICK: Re-Validate your-e-mail@sun.ac.za Account<\/u><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
~~~<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
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.<\/div>\n

\n <\/u><\/div>\n

\n <\/u><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

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

[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]<\/p>\n

[:]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[:en] 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\u00a0on\u00a0our email accounts drop, and it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20382,20381,29187],"tags":[20381],"class_list":["post-12625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-email","category-phishing","category-security-2","tag-phishing"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 07:09:45","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\/12625","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=12625"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12680,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12625\/revisions\/12680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}