Ohio State regularly runs phishing training exercises to the university community. By clicking the link that brought you to this page, you succumbed to a university phishing simulation. Read on to learn how to spot phishing messages and protect yourself and the university from malicious attacks.
Spotting the Phish
You received this email:
Sender Addresses: The sender address, hr.representative@hr-dept.info, is not a legitimate domain for the Ohio State's human resources department and should raise red flags. The domain (everything after the @ symbol) is the first indication that this might be a phishing attack.
Suspicious Language: The email is encouraging the recipient to "Complete the form" by the end of the week, suggesting some urgency.
Branding: The email does not follow Ohio State branding standards and should be seen as suspicious. At the bottom of the email, 'ohio state university' is not capitalized.
Review the URL of web page before engaging with it: When you clicked from the email, a website was loaded with a URL of https://order-history.paypol-login.com, which is not a legitimate site. Attempt to confirm the legitimacy of a site before you enter login credentials or personal information like name, email address or phone number.
Report Phishing Attempts
If you ever suspect an email to be a phishing attempt, please report it immediately by clicking the "Report Suspicious" button in the warning banner which appears at the top of that external email.