THE University of Huddersfield has issued a warning to staff and students after coming under attack from internet “phishers”.
The scam involves speculative emails to an organisation in a bid to access people’s passwords, and possible their cash.
The university’s computing services department says in recent weeks it has come under pressure from unscrupulous criminals who target their users.
Head of the department Brian Hackett said: “We have noticed that these attacks are getting more sophisticated.
“They send an email to locations with an ac.uk address and say they are from the IT helpdesk and that the internet account has been reported for junk mail activity, with a request for the password to access the account.
“Some people use the same password for their bank and in another university there was an example of one staff member losing their cash.
“We are doing everything we can to warn staff and students that we do not ask for passwords.”
Computer users are being asked to forward suspicious emails to the computer department so they can block the return address, which in turn prevents any staff or students in the university making the same mistake.
