On the morning of March 19th UBC Cybersecurity was made aware of a compromised account (see below) that was leveraged by malicious actors to send phishing messages internally within UBC and externally to other organizations.
Fortunately, they were able to quickly take action against the compromised account and secure it as well as extract the phishing message from affected recipients. However, if you have already clicked on the link in the phishing email and divulged your CWL login credentials, please do the following:
1. Initiate a full virus scan of your computer in case there were any malware droppers or malicious code on the website that downloaded and installed malware. If using Cisco Secure Endpoint you can follow these instructions: hXXps://ubc.service-now.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0016405
2. From a known clean computer perform a password reset through the CWL myAccount hXXps://www.myaccount.ubc.ca/myAccount/
3. When changing your password, make sure the new password is complex, hard to guess, not a reused password, and not a password that has been used elsewhere.
4. Consider using a password manager. UBC Privacy Matters has some tips and tricks for setting up a password manager here: hXXps://privacymatters.ubc.ca/password-manager
Please report future phishing emails to UBC Cybersecurity by sending the email as an attachment to security@ubc.ca.
Some examples of indicators of a phishing message:
- Asks you to divulge personal information
- Asks for login credentials, credit card number, etc.
- Isn’t personalized (uses generic greetings such as ‘Dear Customer’)
- Has links that don’t match what is displayed (when you hover over the link with your mouse)
- Has a false sense of urgency
- Is poorly written
- Is too good to be true
- Asks you to open an attachment
Additional resources:
Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre – hXXps://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/report-signalez-eng.htm
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Identity Theft Guide – hXXps://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/identities/identity-theft/guide_idt/
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to UBC Cybersecurity at security@ubc.ca.