ALERT: Fraudulent emails with the header of the Department of Public Security

For 48 hours, fraudulent e-mails sent in the name of the Public Security Department of Monaco have been widely distributed, in an untargeted manner, from different e-mail addresses, some of which have escaped the anti-spam filters of e-mail providers.

This is a malicious attempted phishing (or “Phishing”) campaign with the purpose of defrauding potential victims who would respond to the message.

These fraudulent emails, clumsily written, inform their recipients that they are allegedly implicated in the context of a procedure and request from them the opening of a document in PDF format, contained as an attachment, as well as the send an email response.

This false summons refers to alleged “criminal proceedings for acts of a sexual nature” brought against the recipient of the message.

The recipients of this message are invited to:

• DO NOT REPLY TO THE SENDER
• Do not open the attached document in PDF format
• Forward the email received to the address cyber@gouv.mc
• Report in his mailbox the mail and / or the sender as undesirable
• Proceed to the permanent deletion of the message at the end of the report

More generally, it is recalled that:

• The Department of Public Security never sends such summons by email.
• The only email addresses used by Government Services are xxxx@gouv.mc
• Do not rely on the title of the sender, which can be freely chosen by the author, nor on the subject of the message.
• The real email address of the sender must be verified by touching the < sender > field (on smartphone) or by right-clicking with the mouse (on PC).
• Some email addresses are specially created to look like legitimate addresses except for a small detail such as replacing the letter (i) with the letter (l), adding a dot (.) or any other character, in order to create confusion.

Source: Government Portal