An e -mail alert system used by US federal and state departments to alert residents to important information, has been used to send fraud messages, TechCrunch has learned.
The American state of Indiana said on Tuesday that “it is aware of the fraudulent messages that are supposed to be sent by government agencies” to residents for unpaid tolls. TechCrunch has seen an email sent by a government section of Indiana, which claimed that the recipient had an excellent toll balance and contained a disguised link that was redirected into a malicious website.
A statement from the Indiana Technology Office said he “worked with the company used to deliver these messages to stop any further communication”.
Indiana said a contractor’s account was hacked and was used to send fraud messages. The state said that it did not know that “current state systems” were not at stake, but did not exclude a prior violation.
The statement said the contract with the undefined company, which TechCrunch has learned, was Govtech Giant Gianicus, ended in December 2024, but the state claimed that the company “failed to remove the state’s account”.
When reached for comments, Granicus spokeswoman Sharon Rushen told TechCrunch: “We know the recent malicious emails sent through Govdelivery from the Indiana government sector.” The company confirmed that the breach was caused by a compromised user account, but did not comment on Indiana’s allegations.
“The Granicus systems themselves were not violated,” Rushen said. When asked, the company said it had the technical means to determine how many people received malicious emails, but did not immediately give a picture of the affected.
Toll fake messages are an increasingly common scam, such as The Federal Committee of Commerce warned in January. Fraud involves sending text messages and emails claiming that recipients owe money to tolls to all the United States. By targeting e -mail systems used by governments to alert the public, scammers hope that the victims will be more likely to open officials.
A person who received the fraud message shared the email with TechCrunch. The fraud email was sent by an official Indiana government email address related to the state’s emergency business center, which coordinates answers and alerts in the event of physical disaster or other emergency events. The email claimed that the recipient had unpaid tolls in Texas and that “Failure to pay can lead to sanctions or vehicle registration”.
The fraud email contained a link, which appears as an employee govdelivery.com Web address, but when click on redirects on a malicious website that undermines the website of the State of Texas Road Tolls Service, TXTAG.
The fraud website tried to cheat users to convert their personal information, such as their name, phone number, home address and credit card details. The website (and another clone area hosted in a similar area) appeared to be offline on Tuesday morning on the east coast of the USA.
A spokesman for the Indiana government did not comment immediately.
