Cybersecurity - Phishing Awareness

ATTENTION ALL MEMBERS OF THE UWI COMMUNITY

The UWI, in addition to many other institutions in Jamaica and around the world, has been subject to attempts by criminals to fraudulently acquire both personal and sensitive information including account user names, passwords and credit card information. This activity is known as a Phishing Scam and is unfortunately growing in popularity as the perpetrators grow in ingenuity.

The more popular telling signs of an e-mail phishing scam may have, in the subject or body of the message, a request to "Verify your account" or "Confirm your Address". This is normally preceded by an explanation of why you need to provide some kind of personal information to prevent your account from being disabled or suspended.

What Can You Do?

To avoid these phishing schemes, please observe the following email best practices:

  • Do not click on links or attachments from senders that you do not recognize. Be especially wary of .zip or other compressed or executable file types.
  • Do not provide sensitive personal information (like usernames and passwords) over email or any external/third party sites.
  • Inspect URLs carefully to make sure they are legitimate. Watch for email senders that use suspicious or misleading domain names

Rest assured that MITS will never ask you to send, via e-mail, any user account or otherwise sensitive

information such as credit card numbers, user names or passwords. If you do receive an e-mail that you believe is a scam to fraudulently acquire your personal information, please do not comply with the request. All such activities should be reported to MITS by forwarding the message in question to phishing@uwimona.edu.jm.