Author Archives: mike

Dodgy .ac.uk Web Sites

Posted on 2020-10-15 by mike

No, we not talking about real .ac.uk web sites but fake ones. We have recently been alerted to the activities of a certain well-known attacker (the “Silent Librarian”), and whilst processing it I noticed something it might be helpful to … Continue reading →

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What Are “Homoglyph” Attacks?

Posted on 2020-08-07 by mike

As the phrase has started becoming more widely used, it seems worthwhile to explain just what exactly “homoglyph attacks” are. It is perhaps a bit extreme to call them “attacks” as they are effectively used to deceive … especially in … Continue reading →

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Twitter: The Trustworthiness of The Blue Tick

Posted on 2020-07-17 by mike

If you have not heard, Twitter suffered some sort of incident recently (yesterday at the time of writing) where a number of high profile accounts were used to send out “tweets” suggesting that if you pay them some money (in … Continue reading →

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The VPN, Facebook, and China

Posted on 2020-07-16 by mike

We have had at least two reports that some people logged in to our GlobalProtect VPN are also logging into Facebook, examining their current Facebook logins and finding that they’re unexpectedly logged in from China (or Qatar). This is not … Continue reading →

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VPN or GlobalProtect Performance Issues

Posted on 2020-06-15 by mike

On occasions over the last few months, IS has been contacted with regard to network performance issues in relation to the VPN (the GlobalProtect VPN). As a result we have built up some recommendations that may be helpful to others … Continue reading →

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Dealing With Suspicious Emails

Posted on 2020-05-12 by mike

From time to time, we all receive emails at work that we regard as a little suspicious (if you do not, it is quite possible that your suspicion level needs to be increased). What should we do with those emails? … Continue reading →

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Who Is mikemeredith@hotmail.com?

Posted on 2020-05-01 by mike

Short answer: No idea! And yes that is my name. We have received a couple of reports of phishing attempts using look-alike names – in this example (which isn’t real), the email address mikemeredith@hotmail.com was used in an email purporting … Continue reading →

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Security At Home

Posted on 2020-04-15 by mike

As most of us are now working from home, it is time to consider security in the home; because you are working from home, security at home is important to the university (in addition to yourself). Indeed there are new … Continue reading →

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Scams In The Time of Coronavirus

Posted on 2020-03-26 by mike

(with apologies to Gabriel García Márquez) As expected, scammers are trying to take advantage of fears over Covid-19 (the Coronavirus) to push their victims into unwise actions – often for profit. I have already seen two scams announcing UK government … Continue reading →

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Working From Home

Posted on 2020-03-13 by mike

For some reason there seems to be a bit of an increase in interest in working from home and so it seems rather timely to produce some advice. Not so much the technical side of things, but general advice from … Continue reading →

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