Spam Mail Distributed from id of District Council of Kapiti Coast

Many people likely found a mistaken e-mail in their inbox sent from the District Council of Kapiti Coast because of one spam mail which got into the council's server. Coming from an id of the council, the e-mail directed recipients that they should communicate with John to get a thorough information regarding transmission of money to them on the basis of their surname. Added to the note was John's e-mail given as johnchan.private001@gmail.com.

Expressing his regrets, Mayor K Gurunathan stated the spam message, which started off the mass e-mail distribution, bypassed the anti-spam software of the council.

He said despite the council's IT protection detecting the majority of spam mails entering its servers, every time something odd made its way through, so the council encouraged people getting a dubious appearing e-mail from it towards erasing it as also informing the council directly.

During the week of August 21, there was an onslaught of phishing and spam mails which looked as coming from authentic organizations of New Zealand. August 21 saw certain scam posing to represent the Ministry-of-Primary-Industries while showing info@mpi.govt.nz in the sent field. Securitybrief.co.nz posted this, August 30, 2017.

An attachment in the e-mail planted a keylogger that CERT NZ would find hard for eliminating. According to Ewen Church, chief information officer of the council, all through the night, a team of experts worked towards disabling the spam mail which got dispatched from its server.

With full confidence Church said all of the main computers at the council stayed uncontaminated. The attack was no hack, simply one spam mail having an embedded malicious web-link.

Further according to Church, he didn't know what number of e-mails got dispatched following the attack. While the council had finished examining the computers, it would do extra to educate staff regarding the problem.

In a strong advisory note, the council asked the public not to reply to the e-mail since it was a scam. It stated that those who opened the form followed with entering their credit card or other personal data should immediately tell their bank. Further, they should contact IDcare. People could inform Inland Revenue too via phishing@ird.govt.nz.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/5/2017