This is to alert the EOSC-A membership and wider EOSC community to a new set of email-based phishing attempts that have recently been received by individuals linked to EOSC.
These email messages pretend to come from EOSC-A President Karel Luyben, and are sent from, for example, “presidentcerk@gmail.com”, but may take any form of gmail address. They are not the result of a hacked account or system, but are fraudulent direct emails from email addresses that are not related to EOSC or the EOSC Association.
If you receive a request from an EOSC-A board member with whom you are not regularly in contact, or that otherwise seems out of the ordinary, please always check the origin of the email by looking at the full email address in the “FROM” field of the email, paying special attention to those “signed” by Karel Luyben. If the full email address in the email’s “FROM” field does not originate from either the “@eosc.eu” domain or that of the recognised home institution of the sender in question, please alert EOSC-A immediately. Do not respond to the email or click on any links contained in the message.
The most recent of these emails making the rounds reads as follows. If you respond to this message, a series of follow-up emails will eventually request you to transfer money to a bank account.
Dear [your first name],
I hope you are having a productive week, I know you’re busy, so I’ll be brief.
Please, I’d be so grateful if you could help the board today? Kindly let me know so I can explain better.
Regards
Karel LUYBEN