The University frequently receives signals of students and staff about e-mail and websites in which they were urged to provide their user names and passwords. Never respond to such messages, which are attempts to steal identity information (so-called 'phishing').
Phishing is a form of fraud. Criminals mislead you using emails and websites that appear to originate from known, reliable companies. In reality these emails and websites are forgeries. You will be asked for login details, credit card information and/or your social security number. If you provide these details your account may be used for fraudulent purposes, like the purchase of goods or the sending of spam.
Students and employees may receive an email requesting the login information for their mail account, for example. The mail and/or webpage appear to belong to the RUG.
How do you recognize phishing?
The use of language is often poor and grammar and syntax are incorrect. Spelling and grammar mistakes in an e-mail increase the chance you are dealing with a phishing mail.
You will be urged to respond quickly. Often a situation is presented in which an account will expire if you do not respond immediately.
Phishing is rarely directly addressed to you by name.
In the email you are often asked to click a link to a website. Pay close attention to the composition of this link. Often the real address is camouflaged and you are redirected to a site that is not in the rug.nl domain.
Sometimes you are asked to open programs or files that are attached to the email. These attachments may contain spyware or automatically direct you to a web form.
What can happen if you do respond to a phishing mail?
Your account may be used to send large amounts of spam email.
The attacker has access to personal information including your salary information.
Through access to your computer, further personal details can be stolen. Furthermore, your pc can be used to spread viruses and infect other pcs.
The University of Groningen has published an IT Acceptable Use Policy. In this policy you will find suggestions for the safe use of your University IT account as well as general conditions for using your account. The Acceptable Use Policy can be found on the University's website.
Last modified: 21 February 2019 11.09 a.m.