Rock County officials are working fervently on damage control today after they learned a county email has been hijacked by scammers.
According to Rock County Administrator Kyle Oldre, a township official called Auditor-Treasurer Ashley Kurtz this afternoon questioning an email he had received from her office.
It requested election information and instructed him to reply. He instead called Kurtz who had no knowledge of the request and instructed him to delete the message.
She immediately emailed all township officials instructing them to ignore the scam email.
Meanwhile, he said all county employees have also been made aware of the Kurtz email impersonator.
In this case, the sender’s email came from “financeofficial.gov@gmail.com” and the email message had mimicked Kurtz’s official county signature block. Kurtz’s actual email address is ashley.kurtz@rockmn.gov.
Oldre said it’s unclear what the scammer was after.
“That’s the scary part; we don’t know,” he said. “Would they ask for $500 for election ballots, or $50 for something else? … Obviously it wasn’t for good intentions.”
In addition to alerting local election officials and county employees, Oldre is warning community members.
“This is a learning opportunity for the general public as we get closer to the election season,” Oldre said.
“Just because it says it’s coming from an elected official doesn’t mean it is. Always verify the sender. And if there’s any doubt at all, call us.”
Oldre’s office can be reached at 507-283-5065. Kurtz’s office is at 507-283-5060.
