A phishing attack is circulating on campus. The subject line is similar to “Process has begun by our administrator.” It claims that you recently made a request to terminate your Office 365 email. It may look as though it has been sent by a UW-Whitewater user by spoofing a campus email address.
DO NOT ENGAGE with this email — it is a scam. Thank you to everyone who has reported it.
Phishing scams are designed to get you to respond to the email either by clicking on a corrupted link/attachment or providing personal and financial information.
Recently, more elaborate scams have been coming from someone impersonating a person from UW-Whitewater or from someone offering a job for a substantial amount of money. They are hoping to catch you off guard with an offer that sounds too good to be true.
Never provide any personal information and take the time to look at the entire message before you decide to respond. Below are some tips for spotting these scams.
Phishing attacks can be spotted using the following tips:
- Is it offering money or a job, or asking for your personal info or your help?
- Is the offer too good to be true?
- Does it have a generic greeting or signature?
- The message is urgent or very important and urges you to act immediately.
- Look for grammatical errors; many times the attacker will rush to get the message out.
- The email address is not coming from a UW-Whitewater account.
- Check the user’s email address and make sure you recognize them.
Never give out your personal information through an email, especially to someone you do not know. Cybercriminals will use this info against you to steal from you, copy your identity or sell your info to other criminals.
If you see any suspicious emails, please attach them and send to suspiciousemail@uww.edu. Be sure to report all types of suspected information security incidents, such as lost/stolen devices, emails with high-risk data sent to inappropriate individuals, compromised accounts, security breaches, etc. to the Help Desk.
Please contact the Help Desk if you have any questions: helpdesk@uww.edu or 262-472-4357.