Information Security holiday update
With the festive season fast approaching, the Information Security team is providing tips on how to identify emails sent by fraudsters.
The University has recently seen a number of email fraud attempts where fraudsters pretend to be either staff or students asking for help to buy iTunes gift cards.
These emails are coming from Gmail addresses, which are set up in the name of staff or students and, if responded to, criminal will try to convince the recipient to ‘help’ them.
As these emails appear to be coming from genuine addresses, it is not possible for the University to block them, so the following tips should help you spot them:
- Be wary of communications that come from somebody’s non-University email
- Check with the individual via another channel, such as by phone or their University email address
- Be suspicious of requests to buy gift cards or transfer money received by email
More tips and hints are available on the Information Security website pages or the Get Safe Online page below.
If you need to report online fraud to Police Scotland, you can do this in person at a police station or by calling 101 and telling the operator that you need to report a cybercrime.
Tech tips
Some of us may receive new tech over the holidays. Before taking your devices for a spin, it’s worth remembering a few simple tips to help keep them safe and secure:
- Install updates and patch regularly
- Install anti-virus
- Enable PINs (Encryption) and screen locks
- Only download new apps from official marketplaces
- Disable services you don’t need or use