Staff and students urged to stay vigilant over increase in targeted phishing emails designed for ransomware attacks
We are currently seeing an increase in phishing attempts targeting Kent staff and student email accounts.This type of spam has been associated with Black Basta, a known ransomware group.
The technique involves spamming your inbox with more than 100 emails, and then contacting you via Teams to “help resolve the issue”. You will be requested to download and install a remote control app, or allow remote access, which then infects your computer with ransomware and attempts to spread across the network.
What you need to do
If you see high levels of spam in your inbox, please do not open or respond to them. Report as Phishing using the “Report” button in the Outlook toolbar, or you can just delete them.
Do not respond to Teams calls from someone claiming to be from IT Support offering to help with this spam. Before accepting any offer of assistance, please contact IT and Library Support using the details below to verify the caller is actually from IS.
If you have already experienced this and been contacted via Teams to install something, please let us know as soon as possible. We operate a “no blame” culture and you will not be in trouble, we just need to verify that your account and our systems are still secure.
What we’re doing to prevent attacks
Information Services are already taking active measures to reduce the impact, but your assistance is essential to help keep your data and our services and systems safe.
Thank you
IT and Library Support
Information Services, University of Kent
Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NZ
- Nexus Self Service
- helpdesk@kent.ac.uk
- Tel: 01227 82 4888