Phishing scams are an attempt to steal information, such as usernames, passwords, or other personal information, by sending official-looking emails from University administration, the IRS, or other professional entities.  A good rule of thumb is that any email that asks for personal information is likely fraudulent.

Current phishing examples seen on campus -  Check this page for some recent messages.   If you get a suspicious email but don't see it listed here, do NOT assume it is safe.

Spam emails are more often than not attempting to sell products or drive traffic to a website. Spam emails are considered more of an annoyance than malicious, though websites linked in spam emails could contain malware or viruses. You can delete the messages, create a rule to mark as spam, or report directly to Microsoft (see below).

See How to Recognize and Avoid a Phishing Scam for more details.

How to report a phishing scam to UI Phishing Team

1. Create a new email message
2. Address it to ui-phishing@uiowa.edu
3. From your Inbox, select the phishing email that you received - you must select the email, not the content. You have several options for attaching the message:
   1. In the Inbox list, right click on the message and choose Copy. Right click in the body of the new message and choose Paste. (Mac Outlook users -- CTRL+click and choose Forward as Attachment) 
      
   2. Make the new message window smaller. Make your Inbox window smaller. Drag the phishing message from the Inbox to the new message. 
      
   3. Open the message to forward and click ... and choose Forward as Attachment (depending on your view, you may need to click More and Forward as Attachment)
      
         
      
       
4. This will now show as an empty email with the phishing email as an attachment.
5. Send the email to the ui-phishing@uiowa.edu address.

Please note: 

• For more detailed instructions on attaching the email using various email clients see How do I forward an email with full headers?   
• iOS and Android users: Rather than using your mobile clients, please log in to the Office 365 web app (OWA) via https://office365.uiowa.edu to forward an email with full headers. 
• Healthcare users: If these steps don't work for you, please contact the HCIS Help Desk for further instructions. 

How to report Spam to Microsoft

1. Select the message that is junk and move it to the Junk Email folder. Moving a message to the Junk Email folder will automatically be reported to Microsoft. 

For more information about managing your Junk Email, see How Do I Manage Junk Email and Spam?

See Microsoft's instructions for more details on reporting spam