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Virus Information, Malware And Spyware - Phishing

What is Malware?
What is Spyware?
How do I remove Spyware?
What is Spam?
What is Phishing?
Share Responsibility for Protecting our Community at NUI, Galway
Malware infected sites being blocked

What is Malware?

Malware, also known as Malicious Software, is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The term is a portmanteau of the words malicious and software. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. Many computer users are unfamiliar with the term, and often use " computer virus" for all types of malware.

What is Spyware? 

Spyware is usually advertising software that gets installed on your computer without your knowledge. Companies use it to pop up advertisements on your computer, track your Internet usage, and gather other personal information about you. These programs are usually not written very well and tend to cause a lot of problems.

Besides invading your privacy, these programs often cause problems with Internet Explorer and other web browsers. If you have a lot of spyware on your computer, chances are that one of these programs has affected your Internet browsing capabilities.

Common Symptoms of Spyware

If your computer is experiencing any of the following symptoms, you might have spyware:

• Random advertisements that pop up on your computer
• Unusual slowness of your system
• Unusual instability in your system (computer crashes more than usual)
• Odd behaviour in Internet Explorer or other browsers, such as re-direction to search sites that you've never seen, or your homepage has been switched to a different page.

Major Sources of Spyware

The following programs are either spyware themselves or spyware is installed along with the program.

• KaZaa
• Gator
• Morpheus
• Most web search toolbars (except the Google toolbar)
• Most pop-up blocking software (except the Google toolbar or built in pop-up blockers in browsers)
• Download accelerators or managers
• There are many other sources of spyware. We recommend only installing programs from reputable companies and only if the software is necessary. If a website asks to install software on your computer, always click "no" unless you know specifically what it does.

How do I remove Spyware

Information Solutions and Services recommends the following spyware detection and removal programs:

• Spybot - Instructions to download and install Spybot
  
  
• Microsoft Malicious Software Removal (M.S.R.) Tool - Instructions to download and install M.S.R. Tool
  
  
• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Instructions to download and install Malwarebytes

What is Spam?

eMail spam, also known as "bulk email" or "junk email," is a subset of Spam that involves nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. 93% of email address to nuiglaway.ie email address is Spam and blocked by our email security appliances.  eMail which is potentially SPAM is tagged [NUIGspam]. Users can filter [NUIGspam] emails to a separate folder.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is an attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as username, password and banking details, by masquerading as a trustworthy organisation or individual in an email message.

IMPORTANT
You should never respond to an unsolicited email requesting personal information.

How can I protect against phishing messages?
Be suspicious of any email with requests for personal information.
Note specifically that Information Solutions and Services will never send an email asking you to provide us with your password by email.

If you receive a fraudulent email:

1. Do NOT click any links
   
   
2. Do NOT open any attachments 
   
   
3. Do NOT enter any personal details on the fraudulent email or website
   
   
4. Report the ’phishing’ email to the Service Desk
   
   
5. Delete the email.

What if I responded and gave my username and password?
You should change your email password immediately.  Report the ’phishing’ email to the Service Desk
As your account was compromised you will start to receive a large amount of SPAM emails.  Do not open/reply to any of these emails.  Delete these emails.

ISS Response 
When ISS are alert by an account generating large amounts of outbound email, this usually means SPAM emails

1. ISS will reset the password on your account
2. Log on to the account and check the rules. If there is a rule to move all messages as they arrive into Deleted Items, delete the rule.  Usually the SPAMMer creates a rule to move ALL mail to the deleted items as they arrive. This usually delays the users awareness that their account has been compromised and the problem they usually report is that they are not receiving new mail.
3. Create a new rule to move bounced SPAM to the deleted items folder. This might be based on the subject line.
4. ISS will ring (if your telephone number is available) and inform you of your new password and the new rule created on your account
5. A large amount of outbound SPAM emails can sometimes lead tonuigalway.ie emails being blacklisted, depending on the extent of the volume of SPAM.  ISS will follow up with individual service providers to get the block removed.  It can take up to 24 hours for external service providers to remove the block onnuigalway.ie emails

Share Responsibility for Protecting our Community at NUI, Galway

A number of you will have received a recent fraudulent message purporting to be from the NUI Galway "Technical Upgrade Team" or “IT SERVICE webteam” asking for your email login details.

We are all becoming increasingly familiar with the need to protect ourselves against malicious and fraudulent attempts to get us to disclose personal information. Many of you will be familiar with this through your use of Internet banking. On this occasion the fraudsters' objective was to use the University's IT resources to send out Spam on a large scale.

Only a tiny handful of people in our community were unfortunate enough to be deceived by this particular message. However, even this enabled the fraudsters to obtain limited access to our resources. The gaps created have now been plugged.

Despite our best efforts and significant technology investment we cannot guarantee to intercept and block all such messages in future. We have to ask you to share responsibility for protecting our community.

You should be aware of the following key principles:

1. At work and outside work you should never ever respond to unsolicited emails requesting personal information such as your bank details, your date of birth, or your computer login credentials.
   
   
2. Remember that Information Solutions and Services will never send you an email asking for your computer password.
   
   
3. Any "All Staff" email sent by Information Solutions and Services will always be signed off with the name and position of a Information Solutions and Services manager. If you don't know the person or their position then check them out on our website.
   
   
4. In future we will introduce messages from Information Solutions and Services with the words: "Information Solutions and Services / Réitigh agus Seirbhísí Faisnéise". If the message doesn't have this heading then don't trust it. 

    

    

    

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