Over the last few weeks there has been a marked increase in the number of attacks on CERN made by cybercriminals. Typical attacks arrive in the form of e-mail messages purporting to come from the CERN Help Desk, Mail Service, or some similarly official-sounding entity and suggest that there is a problem with your account, such as it being over-quota. They then ask you to click on a link or to reply and give your password. Please don’t!

Be cautious of any unexpected messages containing web links even if they appear to come from known contacts. If you happen to click on such a link and if your permission is requested to run or install software, always decline it. NEVER provide your password or other details if these are requested. These messages try to trick you into clicking on Web links which will help them to install malicious software on your computer, and anti-virus software cannot be relied on to detect all cases.

In case of questions on this topic, you may contact mailto:helpdesk@cern.ch.

CERN Computer Security