Stay safe online

As hackers and cyber criminals become more sophisticated, it's even more important to protect your personal information. Keep our digital environment secure by familiarising yourself with the information below.

Spam

Spam/Junk mail is unsolicited mail, often advertisements or donation requests, sent without consent. These emails are usually a nuisance and can be reported through Outlook.

Phishing

Phishing is an attempt to trick you into disclosing personal information by pretending to be a legitimate contact. These emails are often sent to many people at once and have generic greetings. They may contain malicious links, attachments, or simply request contact to begin a scam attempt.

Commonly targeted information includes usernames, passwords, banking details, National Insurance numbers, and PINs including One Time Passwords (OTPs).

Advice on staying safe

• Report phishing emails using the Outlook Phishing button to alert the university’s security team.

• Do not delete reported phishing emails; the security team will delete anything found to be malicious.

• Do not engage with suspicious emails.

For more information please see: https://students.solent.ac.uk/news/how-to-spot-phishing-and-report-it where you will find a how-to guide available for reporting emails.

If in doubt, report it and get it checked out as per the details above. Any other information security incidents should be reported using the incident notification form available on the staff/student portals: https://students.solent.ac.uk/news/new-information-security-incident-management-policy

Quarantine

Microsoft Defender directs any suspected malicious, phishing or spam emails to Quarantine. This location is used to manage and secure potentially harmful emails. When an email is delivered to Quarantine, you may receive an email from quarantine@messaging.microsoft.com to notify you. This allows you to securely preview the email from the Quarantine page without any need to release the email, unless it was expected contact that you wish to receive.

For more information and advice on using Microsoft Defender Quarantine to review all emails intended for you that have been quarantined please see: https://students.solent.ac.uk/news/introducing-microsoft-defender-quarantine or refer to the guidance document here: https://students.solent.ac.uk/support-documents/studying/technology/microsoft-defender-quarantine.pdf

Remember, this is to help protect your personal information and keep our digital environment secure.