The Washoe County Sheriff's
Office is concerned with keeping the community informed about the
operation of the Sheriff's Office. One of the ways to accomplish
this is by regularly keeping the news media, and thereby the public,
informed of events involving the Sheriff's Office and its personnel.
The Public Information Officer (P.I.O.) coordinates this by acting
as a liaison between the Sheriff's Office and media representatives.
Duties include assisting reporters assigned to cover news stories
and providing them with general information at the scene of major
incidents. Our goal is to provide timely and factual information
to the community we serve.
The P.I.O.
is available 24 hours a day to respond to the scene of major incidents.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 31, 2009
Recent Trend of Phishing and E-Mail Spam Scams reported within the Hispanic Community
CONTACT: Sergeant Carl Macaluso, Detectives 328-3320
Deputy Brooke Keast, PIO 771-8252 cell
www.washoesheriff.com
The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office Detective Division would like to alert the community on a recent increase in “Phishing and Spam” scams targeting the Hispanic community.
Phishing is similar to fishing in a lake, but instead of trying to capture fish, phishers attempt to acquire a victim’s personal information, such as usernames, passwords, social security numbers and credit card details. They do this by disguising their e-mail as a trustworthy or well known entity, large corporation or banking system.
The most recent Phishing scam has been directly targeting the Hispanic community. The Phisher sends an e-mail to an innocent victim advising them that their bank has declared bankruptcy. The Phisher directs the recipient to a false web page to learn how to save their money. Once the victim accesses the web page they are not given information concerning bankruptcy proceedings but instead are told to upgrade their “Adobe Macromedia Flash Player”.
Once the victim downloads the program, they instantly allow the phisher complete access to all of their personal information stored on their hard drive. The phisher exploits the victim by utilizing their personal information to obtain credit cards, establish checking accounts and make various purchases using the victim’s identity and credit.
If you receive any suspicious or unfamiliar e-mails requesting you provide the identified entity with personal information we are advising you take several precautions.
First, do not load any unfamiliar programs onto your personal home computers.
Second, do not provide any personal information without first calling the entity listed to confirm if they sent the email.
Detectives remind residents to be diligent when using the internet and their e-mail accounts. The internet can be used safely but can also be used to exploit us if we do not take certain precautions.
