Warning Issued on H1N1 E-mail Scam

by Dr. Heerboth

We received this notice from Dr. Christopher Koch, the State Superintendent of Schools. This came from the Illinois Department of Public Health and is a warning about email fraud related to H1N1.

Department of Public Health

Dr. Damon T. Arnold, Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, is alerting Illinoisans to a nationwide H1N1 phishing e-mail scam. The fraudulent e-mails (phishing) claim to be from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and reference a CDC sponsored State Vaccination Program. The messages request that users must create a personal H1N1 (swine flu) Vaccination Profile on the CDC Web site. The message then states that anyone 18 years or older has to create a personal Vaccination Profile on the CDC Web site.

The Illinois Department of Public Health encourages anyone who receives these e-mails to delete them immediately as the CDC has not implemented a state vaccination program requiring registration on http://www.cdc.gov. Users that click on the e-mail are at risk of having malicious code installed on their computer system.

People should take the following steps to reduce the risk of being a victim of this or other phishing attacks:

1. Do not follow unsolicited links and do not open or respond to unsolicited email messages.
2. Use caution when visiting un-trusted Web sites.
3. Use caution when entering personal information online.