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
- Create a new email message
- Address it to ui-phishing@uiowa.edu
- 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:
- 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)
- Make the new message window smaller. Make your Inbox window smaller. Drag the phishing message from the Inbox to the new message.
- 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)
- 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)
- This will now show as an empty email with the phishing email as an attachment.
- 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
- 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.
OR
- Use the Report Message Add-In feature
For more information about managing your Junk Email, see How Do I Manage Junk Email and Spam?