Phishing email in circulation [26.04.2021 CBö] Spying on email addresses?

For a few days now, spam mails have been sent out en masse inviting people to watch a YouTube clip.

The mails are apparently sent to (publicly accessible?) e-mail address lists of institutes, faculties (e.g. alumni lists).

The purpose is currently unclear – the mails do not contain direct links and have no attachments.

It is possible that this is an attempt to find out which addresses are valid in order to carry out attacks later.

Please do not reply to these emails – because by doing so you would confirm the correctness of your addresses to the spammer. Please do not forward the e-mail either.

Message subject:

For TU-B XXXX faculty/staff: Dean hiding writer’s identity of his dissertation.

XXXX is adapted to the respective recipient group.

Text of the message as ASCII text without HTML:

Play this short you tube clip: paste " slick way t</=ont>o hide " in you tube search bar to find it. You just can't make this up.
A new twist in academic dishonesty (make people thi=k that one's dissertation was written by someone else).  Crazy/shamef=l.
People write=a decent dissertation, except him.

Or in HTML:

Share with faculty/staff

Play this short you tube clip: paste ” slick way to hide ” in you tube search bar to find it. You just can’t make this up.

A new twist in academic dishonesty (make people thi=k that one’s dissertation was written by someone else).  Crazy/shamef=l.

People write=a decent dissertation, except him.