Over the past week there has been an increase in malicious emails being sent to UoR in-boxes.  The malicious emails are disguised as payment notification emails, and have titles such as “Invoice”. The emails are designed to appear similar to emails one may receive at work.  They contain an attachment, normally an Excel Spreadsheet, which infects your computer with a very severe virus that would require your machine to be totally wiped and rebuilt.

To reduce the likelihood of being infected:

  • Remain vigilant when looking at an email.  Do you recognise the sender? Should you be receiving an email around this subject? If no, then you should not open the attachment.
  • If you receive one of these emails then you should delete it. If you have any concerns then you should contact IT on ex 6262 or at it@reading.ac.uk
  • Make sure macros are disabled in Excel. If you need to use macros for a spreadsheet then enable it manually after you know for sure the document you are opening is legitimate.

If you are working with sensitive and confidential documents then you must take extra care when screening emails.  The university has a comprehensive spam filter that blocks hundreds of thousands of spam emails a week but we are still seeing a few cases of these emails coming in.

If you want further information regarding this issue then please contact it@reading.ac.uk

 

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