Over the past week we've learned of two instances where a fake email has been sent out to local businesses purporting to be from the Parish Council.
The Directory is a useful feature that allows you to categorise and list local walks, places of interest, clubs & societies and so on. If your Parish Council lists local businesses on your Directory however it seems that this scam is targeting these listings.
The scam works like this. Businesses listed on your directory receive an email that looks as if it it from your Parish Council. The email states that the business listing expires soon and presents an option to renew or cancel. We've included a screenshot below but we've redacted to protect the identity of the Parish Council in question and the business that was targeted.
This has been brought to light because the business in question had the foresight to contact the Council in question. In the instances that we've seen, the email comes from service-support@parish.uk
If you do list businesses on your directory then this information is in the public domain and can easily be harvested by these scammers. What we'd advise is to contact the businesses that you list and inform them of this scam. We have also reported this to the National Cyber Security Centre.
Friday, February 17, 2023
