public:emai:spam

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Spam, Phishing and Malware

Motto:

  • Bad news = You can not be prepared to all attacker’s inventions
  • Good news = Being slightly more clever, than the attacker expects you are, is enough.
  1. Quick and automate reaction makes troubles.
  2. Do not accept what message suggests, until you are perfectly sure you understand the intentions.
  3. Do not belive the sender's identity until you really verify it (check sender’s email address closely).
  • Better safe, than sorry.

Good article about clicking links in emails

How and why Thunderbird block remote content



See “Dealing with malware, spam, suspicious content” in separated CERGE-EI Wiki article (details about security measures appliet to incoming emails)


spam

  • Unsolicited mail, just offers unneeded or annoying things.
  • By links to fraudulent webpages or danger attachments could be transformed to other type.
  • Do not open links and attachments, do not reply to it, delete it.

hoax

  • By wiki: A hoax is a falsehood deliberately fabricated to masquerade as the truth.
  • You could be abused to help distribute it. Other harmful content could be appended.
  • Do not resend it to any other address, delete it.

phishing

  • Ask for confidential and private information, often by using fraudulent webpage, masking the request as an account renew etc. Make time pressure and urgency illusion.
  • Never use offered links without its authenticity thorough verification.
  • Be very careful and abstemious by inserting your login and password anywhere.

spoofing

  • The message looks like sent from a trustworthy address, your jobmate, manager, IT crowd, your home institution server etc.
  • Verify sender’s email address, not only the free text label presented by some e-mail client.
  • Take care of “mistyped” form of address, e.g cerce-ei,cz or enlarged form cerge-ei.cz.xxxxx etc.

malware

  • The harmful code hidden in an executable attachment or in a document as a macro or on the fraudulent webpage linked from the message.
  • Never open documents or pages looking like something very very interesting. There is no chance to take a non-binding look.

ransomware

  • Special malware encrypting every data you can access and asking ransom. The process of encrypting could be long term so backups could be affected too.
  • Avoid being infected by malware.
  1. Thing first, check all circumstances, ask in doubt.
  2. Do not accept time presure, postpone action, back to 1, how many times you need.
  3. Only if you are sure, make some settings, password change etc.
  4. In case of any suspicion, tell it including all details to IT.
  5. If you have by mistake compromised your password, change it ASAP and inform IT (compulsory).

In any doubt, do not hesitate to ask helpdesk@cerge-ei.cz. Please prepare complete documentation, timeline, addresses, raw text of message (see wiki - problem reporting)

  • /var/www/html/dokuwiki/data/attic/public/emai/spam.1622809771.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2021-06-04 12:29
  • by vesely