Early on the morning of Sunday, July 6, Guilford County received reports of fraudulent emails impersonating the Guilford County Communications Department’s GovDelivery account.
GovDelivery is a mass email notification system used by many government agencies to send out news releases, alerts, meeting notices and other official updates to residents who subscribe.
This scam is especially concerning because people tend to trust emails from local government. If a resident sees “Guilford County” in the sender line, they’re more likely to click on links or provide personal information. That’s why spoofing these types of emails can be effective – and dangerous.
Just to take one example, if area media outlets received a “press release” from this account, as they often do, it could lead to misinformation being widespread. To take another example, a scammer posing as a county official could ask a social services client for highly personal information.
Once a scammer successfully spoofs one department of the county, it raises concern that other departments’ emails could be spoofed as well.
Scammers often don’t need access to internal systems to carry out something like this.
Sunday night, the county sent out a targeted email to those who – like the Rhino Times – subscribe to the list; though, due to the nature of the attack, anyone could be a victim and receive the fake emails.
The Sunday night email received by the Rhino Times stated, “We are working to identify the origin of the fake emails, and your email has been identified as one of the addresses that was targeted. Please use the guidance below to safeguard your personal information. Please note, neither the County network nor any County services were impacted by this breach.”
While the county is warning those who apparently were targeted, everyone should be careful when reading or responding to emails from Guilford County government until the matter is resolved.
The email from the county to the Rhino Times goes on to add, “As we investigate and address this issue, we recommend reviewing and following cyber security best practices. DO NOT share sensitive credential information such as email addresses, passwords, or banking information with these impersonators.”
Here are some additional recommendations:
- Never share passwords or accounts information.
- Do not provide personal banking information via email.
- Do not click links or download and/or open attachments in any unsolicited email.
If you do receive an unsolicited email from GovDelivery claiming to be from Guilford County requesting personal information, county officials say to disregard it and report the email to the Federal Trade Commission and the North Carolina Department of Justice.
You can report fraud and scams at https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/assistant or contact the Consumer Response Center by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357)
You can also contact the NC Department of Justice and use the consumer complaint form or by calling (877)-5-NO-SCAM.
Thank you, Scott, for the head’s up.
I tend to treat ANY email from Guilford County as a scam. Remember who the Chairman is.
All I can suggest is to get your info off the internet. We are being hunted.
Considering council members are pretty good scam artist, it’s going to be hard to determine if real or fake. Just pay your excessive taxes to cover all the pet projects and dei hires and ignore county emails.
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I got an old fashioned paper demand from them, saying I need to give them nearly $3,000… or else! The ransom note wasn’t cut out from old newspapers, but said something about property taxes, as if merely owning something was a justification for extortion.
My friends tell me I had better pay up even though there has been no actual taxable event – other than the turning of the calendar.
Surely this is some scam…?