{"id":2141,"date":"2025-02-21T11:31:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T19:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2025-02-21T11:31:47","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T19:31:47","slug":"action-required-webmail-account-verification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/2025\/02\/21\/action-required-webmail-account-verification\/","title":{"rendered":"Action Required &#8211; Webmail Account Verification"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This email might look like it came from UVic, but in reality it&#8217;s a phishing email that leads to a fake CAS login page. Notice how the email threatens you with account deletion if you do not act immediately&#8211;the phisher is trying to trigger your fight-or-flight reaction to make you act hastily and do something that isn&#8217;t in your best interest. If a message leaves you with a feeling of fear, urgency or panic, try to pause for a moment and take a few deep breaths before you click or reply, then examine the message to see if there are any red flags.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the urgent and threatening language, other signs that this message is a phish are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The sender address: although the email claims to be from UVic, the email came from an educational institution in Poland (probably a compromised account)<\/li>\n<li>The generic, impersonal greeting<\/li>\n<li>The link destination: hovering over the link shows it does not go to a site from UVic or Microsoft<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you clicked on the link from this email, contact the Computer Helpdesk or your department&#8217;s IT support person immediately, especially if you entered your username and password.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2142\" src=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2025\/02\/2025-02-21-webmail-account-verification.png\" alt=\"Webmail account verification phishing email that pretends to be from UVic IT support\" width=\"803\" height=\"455\" aria-describedby=\"phish_transcript\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2025\/02\/2025-02-21-webmail-account-verification.png 803w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2025\/02\/2025-02-21-webmail-account-verification-300x170.png 300w, https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4983\/2025\/02\/2025-02-21-webmail-account-verification-768x435.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 803px) 100vw, 803px\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote id=\"phish_transcript\"><p>From: University of Victoria &lt;[redacted].edu.pl&gt;<br \/>\nSubject: Action Required \u2013 Webmail Account Verification<\/p>\n<p><small>You don&#8217;t often get email from [redacted].edu.pl. Learn why this is important<\/small><\/p>\n<p>Dear User,<\/p>\n<p>As part of the update to our Webmail platform for the year 2025, we kindly invite you to verify your account to ensure its proper functionality.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>VERIFY MY ACCOUNT [link]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Please note that all unverified accounts will be considered inactive and will be deleted within 72 hours of receiving this message.<\/p>\n<p>We appreciate your understanding and remain available for any assistance you may require.<\/p>\n<p>Best regards,<br \/>\nIT Support Team University of Victoria<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This email might look like it came from UVic, but in reality it&#8217;s a phishing email that leads to a fake CAS login page. Notice how the email threatens you with account deletion if you do not act immediately&#8211;the phisher is trying to trigger your fight-or-flight reaction to make you act hastily and do something &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/2025\/02\/21\/action-required-webmail-account-verification\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Action Required &#8211; Webmail Account Verification<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8719,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2143,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/phishbowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}