KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — As the country approaches the busiest shopping season of the year, the Government is urging Jamaicans to exercise the greatest level of caution when conducting online transactions.

This is in light of a malicious email message that is currently circulating the Internet and which has impacted several Jamaicans so far.

In an interview with JIS News, Head of the Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT), Dr Moniphia Hewling, said the malicious email message is being circulated with the subject title ‘Jury Selection’, and a Government domain address ending with — ‘.gov.jm.’

“This email is not from any agency of the Government of Jamaica. It contains an attachment embedded as a link which, when clicked, downloads malware which collects personal and financial details which are stored on your device,” she said.

She urged Jamaicans to immediately delete this email if they should receive it. “If you receive any email with the subject ‘Jury Selection’, please do not click the link or attachment. Do not forward or reply to the email. If possible, do not open this email,” she said.

Hewling pointed out that if the link is clicked on or opened, it downloads a Trojan which is very hard to detect and captures your data. “It has a key logger, so whatever you type in is captured and sent to whoever is controlling (it),” she said.

She noted that persons have already fallen prey to this fraud, which will affect any device to which the file is downloaded.

Hewling is reminding Jamaicans that any invitation to serve as a juror will be delivered in person by a member of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, and not electronically. “Remember, stop and think before you click,” she said.

The CIRT is charged with creating a framework to build and enhance confidence in the use of cyberspace, with a view to advancing Jamaica’s economic interests and maintaining national security under all conditions.

It is responsible for coordinating cyber-related incident response, timely recovery from incidents, rapid distribution of advisories and alerts within the Government; and continuous monitoring of threats to the Government’s IT resources.

The CIRT team has been in office officially since January 2016, but has been operating remotely since August 2015.