Phishing is a top cyber security threat to the University of Stirling. Personally-identifiable information – the primary target of phishing attempts – which falls into the wrong hands can cause much financial and reputational damage to the University and its employees.
Phishing attacks are often launched by including malicious attachments or links in email. When recipients open these malicious attachments or click on the links, it can spark an attack.
Email originating from outside the University should be approached cautiously, especially messages with subject matter containing information on password changes, email quotas, and often topical issues such as Covid-19. The vast majority of malicious/junk email is stopped before it ever gets to your inbox but the creators of these emails are skilled in developing new ways to target users and get past our automated defences.
This means that our staff and students are often the final stage in our cyber security defences. To aid you to identify suspicious emails, we have switched on tagging of external email.
This started on Monday 18th May, you will see the following at the top of incoming emails from external sources:
Messages tagged with this graphic does not mean the email is malicious, only that recipients should take caution. Do not click on links or open attachments in messages with which you are unfamiliar. All email originating from outside the university, except for approved services, will be tagged with this message.
We switched to this service on Monday 18th May.
If you have any questions about external email tagging, please contact the Information Centre via email or UniDesk.