Colleagues today have reported a suspicious email which seemed to originate from within the organisation but in fact contains a malicious link/attachment.

Today's email shows that criminal hacking methods are increasingly sophisticated and hard to spot. As a general rule, you should do all you can to verify the legitimacy of the sender first, and the authenticity of any links or attachments second.

DO NOT CLICK LINKS OR OPEN ATTACHMENTS. A good way of determining whether something is legitimate is to make contact with the sender to confirm they have sent you an email. If the sender is outside the organisation attempt to make contact with them to confirm the email and what to expect with any links or documents included. If you are not expecting an email with links/attachments, it's best not to open or click on anything until you are sure.

A good tip is to hover over a link, without clicking on it. The real web address will display. Generally you will be able to spot if something isn't right. • Large companies like Apple (and most other organizations) don’t use variations on their web address for email addresses. So if something looks like it is from a large known organisation check the standard email layout against the one you've received. • The domain name may be different than that of the sender, or it isn’t one associated with a legitimate company. Instead of .com or .org at the end of a URL, you might see .ro, .cn, or .ru indicating a site is based in Romania, China, or Russia for example. • A common company name may be used, but there is a misspelling, ex. microsotf.com.

If you come across anything suspicious please contact ICT support straight away. In the case of the email today, or security systems were able to detect the rogue attachment and prevent people from accessing it. this shows that our systems and processes underpinning our cyber security strategy are working.