Interior and Digitization Minister Christian Pegel takes this as an opportunity to warn again about the danger of fraudulent emails and to call for attention when dealing with emails:

“Scammers try to make a profit using a variety of scams, including fake emails in which they pretend to be someone they are not. The aim is often to get the recipient to take actions that seem normal at first glance - donate money to a good cause, support relatives in need or buy something that they absolutely need. The scammers' imagination seems inexhaustible. They keep trying new ways to make sacrifices out of their savings. Sometimes they pretend to be people you know.

The first and most important measure against this is: Carefully check every email that you cannot 100 percent assign to a sender you know before opening it or even answering it or following any requests formulated in it.”

Be sure to check emails

How exactly does that work? “Very often, a look at the e-mail address of the senders provides information: for example, they pose as Deutsche Post, a bank or, as is now happening, as a minister and therefore your superior. But the mail domain after the @ sign is not the one that the institution or person in question usually uses. This can be compared, for example, with a search on the Internet: The official website of the post office is, for example, www.deutschepost.de - the email addresses are therefore XY@deutschepost.de. For official purposes, our ministers always email from their official email account, for example @im.mv-regierung.de for the Ministry of the Interior. “Emails from other mail domains after the @ probably come from someone else,” says Christian Pegel, giving a practical example.

Flag for fake emails

Other signs of a “fake email” could be:

  • missing name, missing title
  • Urgent need for action/short deadline to create pressure to act
  • Grammar and spelling errors
  • unusual curiosity or willingness to help
  • Emails in a foreign language

“Again and again there are supposed instructions from alleged managing directors in private companies who demand very quick payment from accounting employees because of a good short-term deal, a forgotten invoice or something similar. Here too, if the email address is not secure and this is not part of the supervisor's usual behavior, it is worth briefly contacting the alleged sender.

Even if the email strongly advises against it because of meetings, appointments, etc., you should not hesitate to ask if the matter seems strange. Anything else carries the risk of losing a lot of money,” says Minister Pegel, citing another example of attempted fraud in companies.

“If you are unsure whether an email is genuine, you should not open the email and check with the real person via a secure contact channel whether the email came from them. In the case of a company such as the post office (see here: https://www.deutschepost.de/de/w/warning-vor-gefaelschten-mails.html), you can also find information on how to deal with such emails on the Internet . In any case, if you suspect a crime, you should report such emails to the police, personally or via the online watchdog,” recommends Christian Pegel. You can find the online guard here: https://www.polizei.mvnet.de/onlinewache

Report fake emails to the police

The police consistently investigate and prosecute such criminals - “even if it is often not that easy if, for example, they are based in other federal states or even abroad. But the police work together across borders. And the investigators in the respective departments of our state police keep up with the times and are always using new methods to catch fraudsters on the internet,” said the minister. The State Criminal Police Office is investigating the current case of the alleged ministerial emails.

You can find out about dangers on the Internet and how you can deal with them on this website of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania police, for example. You can also find detailed information on how to deal with potentially fake emails on the website of the Federal Office for Information Security . In addition, the MV Ministry of Digitalization and Stralsund University launched a security app with information on various aspects of IT security for everyone.

Source:

Ministry of the Interior, Construction and Digitalization Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
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