Fake IT Support e-mails

25 Jun 2008

Advice on dealing with recent fake e-mail messages

Many University staff and students have received, and are continuing to receive, email pretending to be from the "Manchester Ac Support Team", the "Manchester IT support team" ,the "Manchester.ac.uk messaging centre" or some other University customer support department.

The email messages all ask the person to reply, enclosing their username, password, and sometimes other personal information, indicating that lack of response will result in the account being deleted or disabled.

These messages are all fake and were not sent by any customer services group at the University, and they should be deleted.

Do NOT reply and do NOT send your username and password back to any address. The email actually goes to an address used by spammers and hackers.

If you have replied you will need to change your password and security questions as soon as possible by contacting the IT service desk.

Should your details have already been used by the spammers/hackers, there is a high chance that your account will have been disabled by central IT staff. Therefore you will need to contact the service desk with evidence of your identity in order to unlock your account, preferably by visiting a service desk in person with your Library card.

See http://www.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/contacts/ for details.

IMPORTANT: For future reference: You should NEVER give out your password even to IT staff.

We will never randomly ask for your username (the only instance we may ask for your username is if you have recently raised an IT support call).