Miyoshi Town Council of Social Welfare: a hijacked mail account sent large numbers of English scam emails

Someone logged into the council's mail account and sent large numbers of English scam emails asking for money.

Disclosed

2020-04-27

Organizations involved

Leaked or at risk

Unknown

Downtime

Unknown

What happened

2020-04-24 23:30
From about this time, thousands of bounce notices arrived for mail the council had not sent. An investigation found scam emails sent from the hijacked account. [1]
2020-04-26 07:40
The password was changed, and changed again regularly afterwards, but scam emails may have gone out several more times. [1]
2020-04-27
The council warned on its website to delete suspicious mail and consulted the police. [1]
2020-04-30
It published the details. No data leak or payments by recipients had been found. [1]