Press Release: Monterey County Sheriff's Office Experiences Cybersecurity Incident
DATE/TIME: 05/27/25 at 4:30 PM
TYPE OF INCIDENT: Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Experiences Cybersecurity Incident-
LOCATION: 1414 Natividad Road, Salinas, California
MEDIA CONTACT: Andres Rosas, Commander; Phone: 831-261-5492; Email: rosasae@countyofmonterey.gov
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) has experienced a cybersecurity incident and is warning the public not to click on any links or provide any personal information on emails that come from Sheriff Tina Nieto with the subject line “You've a confidential document securely delivered by NietoTM@countyofmonterey.gov.
The MCSO’s office detected the unauthorized activity on Tuesday May 27th, 2025 at 10:53 am. The emails contain a link and ask for email passwords. This was not an authentic email from Sheriff Tina Nieto and appears to have been designed to harvest your account credentials. This email was sent to several thousand recipients. Please do not click on any of those emails.
If you received this email and clicked on the link, please contact your Information Technology team (IT) at work and immediately conduct a formal change of your email password. If it went to your personal email address, please change your password on your own.
Thanks to safety measures that are in place, the Monterey County Sheriff's ISU and Monterey County ITD department teams were able to swiftly shut down the ongoing delivery of emails to protect the integrity of our infrastructure and safeguard sensitive data and records.
"While we determine the full impact and continue to review activity, we are asking the public to be very careful about emails that came from my office" said, Sheriff Tina Nieto.
Despite this temporary disruption, the Sheriff’s Office functions continue as normal, and we will continue to provide the highest level of law enforcement and corrections services available.
We are working diligently to fix this situation and conduct a thorough investigation.