Please be vigilant - There has been an increase in Spear Phishing emails.
What is happening?
The University is currently receiving large numbers of Spear Phishing emails known as Display Name Spoofing.
Senders use a free email service such as Gmail to create an account and set the display name to match that of a University Staff Member. The email will likely be vague, perhaps urgent in nature, and will attempt to engage you in further conversation. They will then attempt to escalate to the purchase of vouchers or other fraudulent activity.
What should you do?
Look out for emails supposedly from a known colleague but with a Gmail rather than a University ddress (mobile devices may not display the full sender address by default).
You should also look out for the External Email warning banner pictured below. If this banner is present the email did not originate from a genuine staff member’s account.
This banner may also appear in plaintext per below:
CAUTION: External email. Ensure this message is from a trusted source before clicking links/attachments. If you are concerned forward this email to spam@abdn.ac.uk
If you have received such an email please do not respond and report it by forwarding to spam@abdn.ac.uk, and if you suspect you have responded to a fraudulent email please contact the Service Desk immediately.
You can see more information on this scam type on the University website here: