Dear YORKU e-mail user: Fraudulent e-mail attacks continue

York University, along with most other educational institutions worldwide, continues to be the target of fraudulent e-mails. These messages pose as University e-mail or help desk administrators and ask for name and password information. You may also notice similar fraudulent messages pretending to be from popular online services such as eBay, PayPal and financial institutions.

Note that legitimate University notifications will never ask for your password. If you receive such a message, do not reply – just delete the message.

The following is the text of a message that is currently being circulated to York e-mail accounts:

Dear YORKU e-mail User,

A Computer Database Maintainance is currently going on. This Message is Very Important. We are very concerned with stopping the proliferation of spam. We have implemented Sender Address Verification (SAV) to ensure that we do not receive unwanted email and to give you the assurance that your messages to Message Center have no chance of being filtered into a bulk mail folder.

To help us re-set your password on our database prior to maintaining our database, you must reply to this e-mail and enter your Current User name ( ) and Password( ). Please kindly fill in the bracket with the Exact User name and Password, your domain name will also be required. If you are the rightful owner of this account, Our message center will confirm your identity including the secret question and answer immediately and We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause you. We assure you more quality service at the end of this maintenance.

The YORKU Web Email Software is a fast and light weight application to quickly and easily accessing your e-mail. Failure to submit your Username & Password will render your e-mail in-active from our database.

Thank you for using YORKU Web Email!

https://www.yorku.ca

If you have provided your password to such a request, please change your password immediately and notify Client Services so they can verify that your account has not been subject to unauthorized access and abuse.

More on what happens if your e-mail is blocked

A small number of people have responded to these messages resulting in their e-mail accounts being taken over and used to send spam e-mail. While staff at York’s Computing Network Services quickly disable these compromised accounts, sometimes enough spam e-mail is sent that some commercial e-mail services will temporarily block e-mail from York. While CNS does its best to prevent and mitigate these situations, they have no control over waiting periods that external e-mail services impose before lifting blocks.

For more information, contact CNS Client Services at ext. 55800 or e-mail askit@yorku.ca.