If you still experience network issues once power is restored, please contact the ITSC.
Updates will be posted as they become available.
On Thursday, October 14th, 2021 a malicious email was sent to members of the Queen's community. In keeping with the Electronic Information Security Policy, this message is being removed from all mailboxes using an automated feature in Office 365.
Please delete the message manually from your mailbox if you have received a copy.
If you are not using an Office 365 mailbox or forward your mail outside of Office 365, ITS is not able to automatically remove the malicious message.
If you received this message, clicked the link and entered your credentials, please securely change your NetID password immediately.
If you have any questions please contact the IT Support Centre at x36666.
We have provided part of the removed message for your reference at the bottom of this email.
---------------------------------------------------------------
BEGINNING OF REMOVED MESSAGE
From: [REDACTED] <[REDACTED]@queensu.ca>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 12:03 PM
Subject: [IMPORTANT] : Action Required!!
Your account has been held for your protection.
Please login with your Queen's University Account for Verification and follow the instructions.
If you fail to do this, Your account will be permanently blocked.
Verify Now[LINK REMOVED]
Thank You
Queen's University
� 2021 Queen's University. All rights reserved.
Please do not reply to this message. Mails sent to this address cannot be answered.
END OF REMOVED MESSAGE
Why did I get an email about LinkedIn scraped data breach? The Queen’s IT Services Security team recently became aware of an April 2021 data scraping event affecting LinkedIn public profiles, the data of which was subsequently posted for sale and distributed. Whilst the data scraping did not constitute a data breach nor did it access any personal data not intended to be publicly accessible, the data was still monetized and circulated. This event may have potentially affected multiple accounts here at Queen’s. As a precaution, Queen’s IT Services will expire the passwords of any Queen’s account found to be listed on the affected LinkedIn accounts list and who have not changed their passwords since April 8, 2021.
What should I do to protect myself? If you received an email message from IT Services concerning the LinkedIn scraped data breach and have not changed your password since April 8, 2021, you will be sent additional emails requesting you to change your password, prior to your password expiring. NetID passwords are changed at https://netid.queensu.ca/selfservice/login/auth
We also encourage you to take the following actions to better protect yourself and your information: *Do not reuse passwords across your accounts. *If you have used your Queen’s password on multiple sites, we strongly encourage you to change that password on every other site where it has been used. *Be extra diligent of scams that may reference your LinkedIn account.
What data was compromised? According to reports, unique email addresses, as well as names, geographic locations, genders and job titles were scraped. No private LinkedIn data was exposed.
Why is Queen’s expiring passwords for affected accounts? Queen’s account holders who fail to follow safe password practices are at risk when events like this occur. To protect your Queen’s account IT Services are taking this action to prevent account compromises by ensuring all accounts associated with data scraping event have refreshed passwords since April 8, 2021.
What caused the data scraping breach? IT Services obtained breach information from the service called “Have I Been Pwned?” as well as directly from LinkedIn at: https://news.linkedin.com/2021/june/an-update-from-linkedin. Visiting the website https://haveibeenpwned.com/ will allow you to enter and check your Queen’s University email address against all publicized breaches that reference your Queen’s email address. The site also provides details about the data breach, including links to additional information.