Spam hits Kapiti residents

The Kapiti Coast District Council has warned residents after it sent out Nigerian-scam-style emails promising to transfer money to recipients, after a spam attack.

On Wednesday, the council north of Wellington issued a warning that hundreds of people may have received an ‘‘erroneous email’’ overnight. The emails were the result of spam that entered the council’s system.

Sent from a council email address, the emails asked recipients to ‘‘contact John for detailed information on funds transfer to you based on your surname. John’s Email: johnchan.private001@gmail.com’’.

Mayor K Gurunathan said the council had not ‘‘won Lotto and transferred funds to individuals overnight’’. The spam that triggered the activity got through the council’s filter.

‘‘While our IT protection picks up most of the spam mail we receive, there will always be the odd thing that slips through and we do encourage anyone that receives an obscure looking email from us to delete it and to contact us straight away.’’

The council’s chief information officer, Ewen Church, said the council’s team worked overnight to shut down the spam email that was sent from its server. He was ‘‘absolutely’’ confident none of the council’s core systems were compromised and it was a one-off.

‘‘It wasn’t a hack, it was just a spam email with a link embedded within it that the user clicked on.’’