The University of Sheffield
Corporate Information and Computing Services

Phishing Example 1

The following message was sent round the University on 2nd June 2007.

text of a phishing email

The message is asking you to provide your account details or else your account will be suspended - CiCS is not in the business of threatening University members!

Here are the tell-tale signs of a phishing message:

  1. The message is from the email address info@support.com, which is not a University of Sheffield email address.
  2. The message has a 'Reply-to' address of emailtechsupport@mail2webmaster.com - which is not a University of Sheffield email address.
  3. Centre is spelt 'Center', database is spelt 'data base' and Account has a capital A in the middle of a sentence.
  4. The message asks for your Date of Birth!!
  5. The message threatens to close your account, which CiCS do not do.
  6. The message gives no phone number or email address for enquiries.

Nobody in CiCS knows your password! Passwords are encrypted on secure machines. We will never ask you to confirm your password for verification, as we do not know what it should be.