Elgin County, Central Elgin issue “phishing” warning

Elgin County and Central Elgin in a joint statement on Friday evening, April 22, warned local residents about possibly fraudulent emails they might receive that appear to come from them, but don’t.

“In recent weeks, phishing email campaigns have been increasing in prevalence across the province and locally. Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails claiming to be from reputable organizations, in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, or click on links that may contain malicious software.

“The County of Elgin and the Municipality of Central Elgin have been notified that a number of emails have been circulating in the community that appear to be coming from either the County of Elgin or Municipality of Central Elgin. In light of these phishing campaigns, it is recommended that caution be exercised when opening emails and associated attachments from any source.”

Options include: carefully checking to make sure that the email address and sender’s name match; refraining from clicking on suspicious links; and refraining from opening unexpected attachments.

Central Elgin and Elgin County warned against providing any personal information via email. Suspicious email should be immediately deleted.

Elgin County has been in the midst of its own Internet access crisis for the last three weeks. Starting on April 1, access to the county’s website was lost, as was the ability to receive incoming emails and process online documents.

The cause of that has yet to be explained.