Phishing Attack Victimizes Employees of Albert Lea City

This summer a phishing campaign victimized current and ex-employees of Albert Lea city and the incident has been notified to them.

According to Kelly Dawn Martinez, Attorney for Albert Lea City, FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) notified her office, 11th July 2018, about a phishing electronic mail that was dispatched in the city's id and which an employee replied, thereby impacting some 330 current and former employees of the city. Subsequently, the illegitimate third-party acquired access to certain electronic file which had the past and current employees' W-2 forms of 2017.

Soon as the agency issued the notification, Albert Lea city started a probe to know the incident's details. On completion, the impacted employees were sent the letters over mail.

Kelly Martinez, Attorney of Albert Lea City said the city regarded the private data given to it with trust in a serious way.

According to her, the city was aware of the tremendous danger associated with use of the data in furnishing fake tax refunds. She stated that scammers most frequently utilized false data for filing fake tax returns as well as subsequently redirecting those returns into the accounts of illegitimate third-parties.

The data accessed related to approximately 330 present and ex-city staff, whilst there were no bank account or credit card details in it. Kelly Martinez stated it did contain Social Security Numbers along with names and addresses of the employees.

Those impacted with the attack received a notification from the city of Albert Lea. In addition they will receive credit monitoring as also information free of charge once they report to IRS about fraudulently filed state tax. Furthermore, employees have been told of various other precautionary steps which will help safeguard their data.

Speaking to ABC 6, Kelly Martinez said her office had no information regarding if the accessed data had been utilized improperly else whether it would be utilized improperly.

She additionally stated about the evolving nature of phishing e-mails which appeared as arriving from some trustworthy entity. Moreover, her office was set to enforce more awareness programs regarding phishing e-mails along with measures for preventing them from occurring yet again, Martinez said.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/6/2018