American University of Beirut

Coronavirus Themed Phishing

​​​Security Alert

Cybercriminals are using the fear of coronavirus pandemic to launch new phishing attacks on unsuspecting users. These criminals send emails pretending to be on behalf of AUB/AUBMC or other legitimate organizations and to hold important information about the virus.

Such emails may ask you to open an attachment,  access a link, or take you to a web page that requires you to log in. If you do so, you're likely to download malicious software or compromise personal information such as your username and password.


​Tips to protect yourself from such attacks

  • Beware of emails that have titles that urge you to take action such as “Congratulations you have won" or “Open very important;" emails that have spelling mistakes or address you in generic terms such as “Dear valued student" or “Dear Sir/Madam."

  • Do not click on any link in suspicious messages. Legitimate organizations will never ask you for personal information such as your username, password, or credit card related information. An email with the subject “Facebook Account" or “Corona Virus Pandemic Updates" might look very official. However, the content of the email has a link asking you to log in to your Facebook account or other social media accounts using your password. If you do, you are giving access to the phisher to your account (s).

  • Check out the email sender before replying or taking any action no matter how the email looks credible. All emails from AUB should end with @aub.edu.lb or @mail.aub.edu

  • Protect your username and password. Use a hard to guess password that is not randomly chosen from a dictionary.

  • Install an antivirus program on your computer and keep it updated.

  • Report immediately to IT helpdesk if you suspect you have been a phishing victim at it.helpdesk@aub.edu.lb

  • Delete the fraudulent email from your inbox once you have reported it.

  • Forward as an attachment to the suspected email without clicking on any links or making any downloads to spam@aub.edu.lb so it can be blocked from reaching others.


​ If you suspect receiving such an email, please do not click on the links, do not download any attachments, and do not reply to it – just forward the original malicious email as an attachment to spam@aub.edu.lb​ so we can block it from getting to others.​

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