Dealing with Suspicious or Unsolicited Email
The University community has recently experienced an increased influx of unsolicited or suspicious emails.
You as students and staff of the University need to be increasingly cautious of such emails, as they aim to steal your electronic identity and use it to compromise your personal information, or access your computer systems.
Recently a suspicious email purporting to be from the IT Service Desk was received by some students and staff. The IT Service Desk will “never” ask staff for sensitive information via email. Be wary of unsolicited emails, especially those professing to be from official University sources or any other institutions.
If you receive an email you consider to be suspicious, you are recommended to take the following actions by:
1. Checking official IT Announcements at the following website:
<http://servicedesk.unimelb.edu.au/>.
Note: All official IT Announcements are published on the above website, bookmark the website as one of your favourites for future reference.
2. Asking an IT representative to check the logged incident number against the IT Service Desk’s internal job tracking system (Remedy).
3. Checking the status of a logged incident number at the following link: <http://servicedesk.unimelb.edu.au/>.
Follow these basic principles when dealing with unsolicited or suspicious email:
- If an email looks suspicious, it probably is.
- If you do not recognise the sender, ignore and/or delete it.
- Never reply to suspicious emails.
- Never forward suspicious emails to others.
- Never send sensitive, personal or confidential information via email.
- Never click links in suspicious emails.
- Never click or download attachments in suspicious emails.
- Don’t waste a friend's or colleague’s time, check validity of suspicious emails with an IT expert.
For further useful information on Personal Security or other IT Security related material, please visit the following website: <http://www.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/it-security/>
Further information about the hoax emails is available here :
<http://www.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/it-security/scam-emails.html>
If you require further assistance, contact the IT Service Desk by calling (834) 40888, email us at <mailto: it-help@ unimelb.edu.au>, or log a request via the IT Service Desk online link: <http://servicedesk.unimelb.edu.au/>.