(Fremont County, WY) – An apparent phishing email scam has been making its way through the addresses and emailing lists of Fremont County government officials, including Shoshoni Mayor Joel Highsmith, Fremont County Fire Protection District Chief Ron Wempen, and Hudson Mayor Sherry Oler. While others may have been affected, these are the officials County 10 has confirmed at this time.
Early Tuesday afternoon, March 25, the County 10 offices received an email from “jhighsmith@townofshoshoni.org,” the address used by Mayor Highsmith for official communications from the Town of Shoshoni, which had the subject line “Request for Bid Proposal.”
“The Town of Shoshoni Systems is using This Request for Proposals (RFP) for the purpose of selecting vendors to provide Contracted Services, in accordance with the terms, conditions and specifications established within this Request for Proposal (RFP),” the body of the email informs.
The email then states that “Proposals are due on or before 3:00 p.m.(CST) on, April 20, 2025,” and provides a link to “View Full RFP.”
County 10 President/CEO Will Hill followed the link in the email, which took him to an outside platform called Scribe. At that point, the site prompted him to log in with a Google account.
(“Scribe is a legit platform for creating training documents and things, but I’ve seen it used for phishing like this. You sign in and the spammer gets your info,” Hill noted.)
“I noticed that the URLs were all wrong for a Google API and realized it was probably phishing,” Hill shared. “I replied to the email, which was (Mayor Highsmith’s) correct address, and immediately got a response.”
Noting the suspicious response, Hill then called the Town of Shoshoni. An employee said not to click on the link in the email or provide the requested information, stating that the email was “spam” and that they were aware of the situation.
Hill suggested that the email may be more than just “spam,” due to the fact that he received an immediate response from the sender.
He then spoke with Mayor Highsmith, who informed that he had received a similar email from Chief Wempen. After he opened it and followed the site’s instructions, Mayor Highsmith said his computer began “making weird noises and sent out all these emails.”
County 10 soon followed up again with Mayor Highsmith, who stated that his IT crew is continuing to look into the issue and advised anyone on his emailing list not to open these emails.
County 10 then reached out to Chief Wempen, who said that he had already been made aware of the situation as well, and that his IT team was also looking into the issue.
“This isn’t some simple thing; my guys say it’s pretty intricate,” Chief Wempen commented. He said that there have been “hundreds” of emails sent out from his address, which “appear to be targeting government officials.”
Chief Wempen then explained that his office first received a similar “Request for Bid Proposal” email from Hudson Mayor Sherry Oler’s official email address last week, which was also sent to County 10 as a part of her emailing list.
Mayor Oler wasn’t immediately available for comment Tuesday evening when County 10 contacted her to inquire about where/when her email address was compromised, but this article will be updated pending her response.
It is unknown at this time where the phishing attack originated or if it has resulted in more serious consequences, but County 10 will provide updates on the situation as we obtain them.