Official government employees' emails are being compromised. So, this is a follow up to a post I made earlier today. I received an email that is verified to be from an official government domain; it passed DMARC, DKIM, and SPF from @hsi.dhs.gov. I did think it was legitimate at first. However, the contents of the email are incredibly bizarre and do not follow any standard law enforcement procedure, so I no longer believe it is legitimate.
So essentially, it was a very vague warning. This is the email with some redactions.
"Good afternoon,
Please refrain from [REDACTED] on any social platform. It's illegal to [REDACTED]. Any questions please contact me or I can come by your place.
Respectfully,
[REDACTED]
Special Agent
Homeland Security Investigations
[REDACTED County [REDACTED]] Task Force
ASAC [REDACTED] County
[REDACTED PHONE NUMBER THAT LEADS TO A PERSONAL CELL/IMESSAGE NUMBER]"
However, the county listed is in fact my county, and the task force listed is a legitimate taskforce. But there are many red flags here that I can now see:
1. There is no direct accusation/allegation here.
2. There is no case number.
3. There is no address provided.
4. The agent's name when looked up does not lead to anything.
5. Bizarre and overly casual wording such as "I can come by your place."
6. Most importantly, this is just not something that federal agencies do. They are not in the practice of sending people warnings via email with zero other action, and if they did, it wouldn't be phrased like this.
The major reason I thought it couldn't be a scam at first was that it did not require any action. But that is exactly what they wanted me to think.
This is my theory: this is their goal. Vaguely accuse someone of a serious crime, just enough to invoke fear but nowhere near enough to give closure or a full picture. Don't tell them they need to contact you but give them the option to, because you already scared them enough to know that they will likely contact you to try and clear things up. They'll think, just like I did, that there's no way it could be a scam because action wasn't required on their end per se. It's psychological.
Then, that's when the real scam starts. Once you contact them, what the scam is exactly? I don't know. This is just a theory.
Just thought I'd let everyone know and spread awareness in case something similar happens to you guys. I wasn't going to respond either way, but yeah.