By rssfeeds-admin On October 10, hackers were able to intercept what should have been a payment from the district to a vendor.
Prior to the interception, an employee with ESD1 had a concern about bank account numbers and contacted the vendor.
“Our employee noticed something looked wrong and asked for clarification. Everything was handled correctly,” said ESD1 Commissioner and President Rodger Stout. “Unfortunately, we have since learned that these hackers had been in our system for quite some time monitoring our activity and waited for a large transaction to strike.”
Investigators have told Stout that this is one of the most sophisticated scams they have seen, and it is becoming more prevalent. The hackers prevented emails from going to their intended recipients by changing the name of the recipient by one letter.
“In the case of our vendor, the name was changed so that instead of a lowercase letter “I”, the hacker changed it to a lowercase “L” and changed the font slightly so that it was difficult to see the difference between an i and an l,” said Stout. “First and foremost, we are public servants. That’s why we do what we do. If we can now serve the public by making them aware of this scam, hopefully we can raise an awareness that helps prevent anyone else from becoming a victim. That’s our goal at this point.”
Currently the case is under investigation by the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office.
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