Monterey deputies warning about a cybersecurity issue Tuesday

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KION-TV) -- The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) sent a notice to the public on Tuesday about a cybersecurity incident involving a dangerous link being emailed to the public.

They said that people should not click on any links or provide any personal information to an email that came from Sheriff Tina Nieto with the subject line “You've a confidential document securely delivered by NietoTM@countyofmonterey.gov."

The MCSO’s office saying that they detected the "unauthorized activity" on Tuesday around 11 a.m.

According to deputies, the emails contain a link and ask for email passwords.

"This was not an authentic email from Sheriff Tina Nieto and appears to have been designed to harvest
your account credentials," they wrote in a press statement. "This email was sent to several thousand recipients. Please do not click on any of those emails."

They say that if someone did receive this email and ended up clicking on the link, they should contact their IT team at work and immediately change the email password. If it went to someone's personal email, they say that person should change their password on their own.

Deputies say that the Monterey County Sheriff's ISU and Monterey County ITD department teams
were able to shut down the ongoing delivery of these emails, protect the integrity of their infrastructure and safeguard sensitive data and records.

They said that despite temporary disruption, the Sheriff's Office continued functioning as normal and an investigation is underway.