Be aware of the phishing email message below with the Subject: "Jury Selection," which is being circulated on the Government of Jamaica (GOJ) systems, appearing as if it came from the government’s website. The e-mail is not from the Government of Jamaica, even though the domain name (the part after the ‘@’ in the e-mail address) has ".gov.jm", which is only registered to government agencies. This type of trickery is called email spoofing, which makes an email message appears as if it came from an email address, but was actually sent from another. An example of email spoofing is, me sending you an email message from my email account, and changing the "From" address of that same email message, to make it appear as if it came from the Prime Minister's email address. Therefore, never trust unverified unexpected email messages because they appear as if they came from friends, family members, government agencies and other legitimate organizations. Cybercriminals use email spoofing because it actually fools unsuspecting recipients in thinking a fake email message is legitimate.
A Sample of the Phishing Government of Jamaica (GOJ) Email
From: Carlene Green
Date: Sep 30, 2016 2:33 AM
Subject: Jury Selection
Government of Jamaica
Dear Recipient,
If you have identified your name in the document below. Please keep in mind that you will receive a call from the government of Jamaica shortly. To fill a jury position, once contacted please keep all correspondence private.
Attachment
The phishing email message has been created by cybercriminals to steal their potential victims’ account credentials (user names and passwords), personal and financial information. Therefore, if you have received the same e-mail message:
- DO NOT forward, Reply or click on the link.
- Delete it immediately.
- DO NOT open the attachment.
Consequently, please treat every e-mail with an attachment with skepticism (especially e-mails with embedded download links). And, when in doubt about an e-mail please call the sender to verify that they did in fact send it. This might seem bothersome, but it could save your computer from getting infected with a virus and your files from getting deleted or made unreadable.