A small number of students have had their Chinese QQ Messenger accounts hacked, resulting in hackers pretending to be students and contacting parents to demand money.
We have not had any incidents linked to University of Southampton email accounts, but we urge you to be extra vigilant while using any service on the internet including personal email accounts and messenger. We remind you never to give out your passwords or any personal information, and never trust any links that do not come from a legitimate source. If you are in any doubt of the authenticity of anything shown to you on the internet reject it. If you are subject to any fraudulent hacking then we urge you to report it to the police as a criminal matter.
If you require any practical assistance, then we have a number of services in place to support students, and we encourage you to contact Student Services http://southampton.likn.co/studentservices/ or the Students Union advice centre http://www.susu.org/life/2011/ where our teams will be able to offer advice and guidance.