While most people are in the generous holiday spirit, there are still cyber-scrooges looking to steal your personal information and money.
One of the most popular types of cyber fraud is phishing. These types of attacks come in many forms from unsolicited calls to text messages, to emails. Phishing attempts are malicious and encourage unassuming people to act quickly while pretending to be from legitimate organizations.
How to spot holiday hackers trying to phish for your information:
- The sender has a public email address, like gmail.com or outlook.com
- Requesting purchase of gift cards
- Threat of discontinued service or closing your account
- Sense of urgency
- Unsolicited email
- Attachments
- Poor spelling, grammar, or look-alike branding
- Requesting credit card information
What should you do if you think you have received a phishing message?
- Do not respond.
- Forward the email to spam@uwindsor.ca, if it was sent to your UWindsor account.
- Delete the message.
To keep your holiday spirits bright and avoid getting a lump of coal in your inbox, learn more about spotting phishing attempts on the IT Services website.
While many University offices will be closed for the holiday break, the IT Services’ Elf-service client portal will be available to help. In addition to the portal, the IT Service Desk will be open for virtual assistance:
- Friday, Dec. 23, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Tuesday to Friday, Dec. 27 to 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.