Doha, March 15 (QNA) - Qatar University has denied the information received about the hacking of its website, stressing that the infrastructure of the website protection systems is strong, consistent, and is constantly updated.
Qatar University said in a press statement today that all its website's information is under full protection, pointing out that it was only an attempt to control some of the students e-mail accounts, what is technically known as "phishing".
Concerning the "phishing" technique, Qatar University explained that an anonymous email is sent to receiver, asking the account holder to enter its data, which includes passwords, and to use those accounts later to send similar emails to a larger number of accounts.
The university stressed that after follow-up and inventory, it was found that the number of those affected by this attempt is very limited, and their accounts were fully restored, without losing any information, pointing out that the Information Technology Services Department (ITS), took appropriate security measures immediately after reporting the "phishing" of e-mail accounts, to protect the affected accounts, and also to inform the university community not to respond to such emails, and ignore and report these emails.
Qatar University said that "phishing" attempts targeting e-mail accounts are ongoing, both at Qatar University and even in other international e-mail accounts, warning that the only way to avoid the occurrence of such electronic problems is to ignore the opening of anonymous emails, or to click on an unknown link, and report it immediately to those responsible for the security and protection of networks.
The statement stressed that Qatar University is continuously asking its employees through e-mails not to respond to such messages, and to take maximum precautions when dealing with these emails.
The statement quoted the Director of Information Technology Services at Qatar University Dr. Salem Al Naemi, as saying that what happened is not a hacking as reported by some newspapers, which published inaccurate information, and that this is technically known as "phishing" in which the user himself presents his or her account data and this phenomenon is repeated not only at the university level but in all the systems in the world.
Dr. Salem Al Naemi reassured everyone that the matter is simple and is under control, and called on all university employees to be careful and immediately report any suspicious matters. (QNA)