Singapore, hit hard by the recent ransomware attack, suffered another hacker attack. In the latest case, two researchers, one of Indian origin, were hit by a ‘phishing incident’ at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Prosanta Gupta is a science research fellow at NUS and is involved in a security project funded by the Defence Ministry. His computer was hit by a phishing incident when he clicked on a link in a phishing email, which then sent out more such emails to other colleagues, a spokesperson at NUS confirmed.
Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
A spokesperson of NUS said, “This was an isolated phishing attempt that is not related to the recent advanced persistent threat (APT) attack or global ransomware attack.”
She added, “Immediate action was taken to block access to the phishing website. The user has also changed his password and account information as a precaution. We did not find signs of malware or data loss.”
The incident has come almost a week after it was revealed that NUS and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) had suffered separate IT network breaches in April, the first sophisticated cyberattack on Singapore universities, according to local media reports.
The varsity reiterated that it takes cybersecurity and the integrity of its IT systems very seriously, and that its community receives regular advisories on good cybersecurity and information security practices, including how to spot and report phishing emails.