Council email pfishing

2011 sep 6

A new type of pfishing is doing the rounds. Emails are being sent out that are attempting to get the email login details of public sector workers here in the UK. So far councils in East Anglia and Scotland appear to have been targeted, but the list is most likely much greater than that.

A message is sent which claims that the recipient's mailbox is full and "you will not be able to create new e-mail to send or receive messages until you validate your mailbox. To re-validate your account, click here:" A "Click here" link is present at the foot of the email which links through to a non-council website. DON'T CLICK!!!

The strange thing is that the message does indeed appear to come from a council run CMS (content management system).

All council workers should be suspicious of such emails. The best option would be to call the computer support people to check the status of any such messages received.