Phishing

Come difendersi dal Phishing

What is phishing?

”Phishing” is a type of fraudolent email that attempts to steal a user's credentials (user name and password). The user is urged to open a web page and type in his or her credentials, which are then stolen and used for illegal purposes.
Fortunately, it's easy not to fall victim of phishing email, as we will see later.

 

How to tell if it's phishing?

Usually, a phishing email can be spotted as it lures the user to “confirm”, “validate”, or “renew” his or her password by clicking on a link. The phishing message is often written in English, or in more-or-less broken Italian. The web page provided by the phishing email does not belong to University of Verona, even if it looks like it does: it belongs to the attacker!

 

Phishing examples

Now we examine some examples of phishing, highlighting the elements that mark the messages as phishing. As a comparison, we will also examine the legitimate (and only one!) email message provided by University of Verona when a user's password is about to expire.

 

The legitimate Univr email


This is the legitimate message that is sent when a password is about to expire. Please note that the message is written in Italian; it does not include links; it contains instructions that point to the Univr home page and Intranet site; it refers to the GIA code both in the “To:” field and in the message body; “From:” is gia@univr.it; it does not urge the user to “validate” or “confirm” his or her password; the subject is “GIA Notifica Scadenza Password”.

Example 1: phishing in Italian

 

Questo messaggio di phishing si riconosce perché

  1. it does not come from gia@univr.it;
  2. it contains the word “convalidare” (validate); 
  3. it contains a link; moving the pointer on it (without clicking!)
  4. a hidden address is revealed, and it's different than the link shown;
  5. it's written in broken Italian; 
  6. “From” and Subject are wrong; 
  7. instead of “A:” (To:) there is “Rispondi A:” (Reply to:).

 

Esempio 2: phishing in italiano

 

Questo messaggio di phishing si riconosce perché

  1. it does not come from gia@univr.it;
  2. it contains the word “convalidare” (validate); 
  3. it contains a link; moving the pointer on it (without clicking!)
  4. the Subject is not written in Italian (“Alerta de Emergência!!!”)
  5. “From” and Subject are wrong; 
  6. instead of “A:” (To:) there is “Rispondi A:” (Reply to:).

 

Esempio 3: phishing in italiano

Questo messaggio di phishing si riconosce perché

  1. it does not come from gia@univr.it;
  2. it contains the word “aggiornamento” (validate); 
  3. it contains a link; moving the pointer on it (without clicking!)
  4. the Subject is not written in Italian (“Alerta de Emergência!!!”)
  5. “From” and Subject are wrong; 
  6. instead of “A:” (To:) there is “Rispondi A:” (Reply to:).

 

Esempio 4: phishing in inglese

  1. it does not come from gia@univr.it;
  2. it's written in English;
  3. it contains the word “validate”;
  4. it contains a link;
  5. “From” and Subject are wrong; 
  6. instead of “A:” (To:) there is “Rispondi A:” (Reply to:).

 

Now you have all the information you need to avoid phishing. Don't bite the bait and delete all suspicious messages. If you have any doubt, please contact your department's IT staff at once.
  Nel caso vi venga il dubbio di essere stati vittime di Phishing, sulla base della natura di alcune mail ricevute, avvisate tempestivamente i vostri tecnici informatici di riferimento.