Emails About Fake Traffic Infringement Hit Residents of NSW

Computerworld.com.au reported on 4th November, 2014 stating that authorities in New South Wales, Australia are warning people to be careful about a fake notice on traffic infringement sent to them via email.

NSW Office of State Revenue (OSR) issued a warning publicly after being informed of the scam which is believed to have been devised by criminals in Europe.

Detective Superintendent Arthur Katsogiannis, Commander of the Fraud & Cybercrime Squad, endorsed the warning issued by the OSR and reminded residents of NSW to ensure that they report any suspected scams.

Detective Superintendent Katsogiannis added "The emails being sent seem to be legitimate but actually they are completely fake. In the first place, neither State Debt Recovery Office (SDRO) nor Office of State Revenue issue notices about penalty or fines through email and if you receive any such electronic notification, please enquire about it before responding to such email or pay fine. People receiving any of such emails should visit the website of SDRO - http://www.sdro.nsw.gov.au - and enter the penalty or infringement figure and date of offence to check the validity of their fine."

They can also call the SDRO call center at its helpline number to verify the authenticity of the fine.

If the email is a fake, users are advised to report the matter to the NSW Police, NSW Fair Trading or the SCAMwatch website of the Australian federal government.

Unfortunately this campaign is connected to another latest ransomware campaign targeting customers of Australian Post and criminals may adapt to different approach again.

With reference to the ransomware, Stay Smart Online website of Australian government said that the most serious kind of ransomwares encrypt files on computers or networks using high quality of encryption making them useless unless unlocking the computers with the key which needs to be obtained by paying the ransom amount.

It becomes almost impossible to recover the system without the key and the best alternative solution can be to restore files from a clean backup.

The site is advising people to seek technical advice immediately in case your computer or network gets infected by ransomware as time is very critical and prevention of such scams is the key factor.

» SPAMfighter News - 11/13/2014