Public get Warning from Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Office about a Phishing Email Scam

The public are getting warned by the office of Scotts Bluff County Sheriff about a phishing email scam that is going on.

As per a press release, Mark Overman, the Sheriff, on the afternoon of November 7, 2018, said the department came to know that several residents have received an email, which appears to be coming from a valid email address of Scotts Bluff County. The emails were having an attachment, which may contain malware. The emails further demanded a lump sum amount of money in the next 3 days, if not done then the legal proceedings will begin as per the email.

Sheriff Overman warns public that all these emails are fake. He further said that these emails are not sent by anybody from the Scotts Bluff County. Overman also confirms that Scotts Bluff County never asks for money through email.

"The perpetrators of these scams have the ability to falsify their email address. No entity within Scotts Bluff County communicates with citizens via email regarding money owed to the County," he said.

The information technology provider of the county has given a link for the people - https://www.knowbe4.com/phishing, from where they can know more about the phishing.

From that link, firstly the people will know what exactly is phishing and short history of the phishing. Then to safeguard themselves from becoming victims of the phishing, the people should have information about how the bad people do this. Many different techniques are used for obtaining personal information from the people. As technology is becoming more advanced, the techniques used by the cybercriminals' are also getting more advanced. It thus discusses briefly about the techniques, like Spear Phishing, Session Hijacking, Email/Spam, Content Injection, Phishing via Search Engines, Web Based Delivery, Vishing (Voice Phishing), Link Manipulation, Smishing (SMS Phishing), Malware, Trojan, Ransomware, etc. used by the phishers.

Then the link also provides information about top-clicked phishing emails, industries which are risk-prone from the phishing attacks, and also regarding common phishing examples. The practices one should follow for trying to prevent phishing attacks and how to report about phishing was also discussed.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/14/2018