Phishing or the fraudulent attempt to get a person's private information is criminal activity done in an IT environment. A phishing e-mail pretends to be coming from a legitimate party and requests information that should be kept private.
Most phishing messages that Metropolia users receive asks to give their password because of a change in some system.
Usually, phishing emails can be recognized as fraud.
If you have click a link in a phishing email act as instructed:
In the example picture, you can see a picture of a phishing email that Metropolians received before. This guide is for the Microsoft Outlook desktop version, but most email programs work the same way.
Keep in mind that Metropolia never asks for your password. Important to note is that any email containing an unknown link must be dealt with care. Especially if the email is from an unexpected source.
Sometimes a phishing scammer manages to send an email so that even the sender’s address looks right. Even if you check the sender's address according to the instructions below, this is not a guarantee of the authenticity of the message.
Often, the messages even come from an address that does not belong to the alleged sender. You will see the address above the message as shown in the image (the address is circled in red):
In the example above, the sender is named "Metropolia University of Applied Sciences". When you take a closer look at the sender's address, you will notice that it does not end at @metropolia.fi. This is therefore not Metropolia's e-mail address.
If the address refers to a sender other than what is claimed in the sender's name, the message is likely a scam. However, sometimes it is also possible to forge the sender's address, or messages may have been sent from a hacked email account. Therefore, the sender's address may also look genuine, even if it is a scam message. For this reason, it is important to always look at the message as instructed in sections 1 and 2.
If you are unsure about the authenticity of a message or need help identifying the authenticity, please contact the Helpdesk telephone service, 09 7424 6777 or by making a service request at https://hd.metropolia.fi. It is better to be sure of this than to be the target of a scam. The Helpdesk is very happy to help with these matters. Early notification of phishing will help IT Management Services prevent phishing from continuing.