Federal Bidding Scam Targets US Contractors

Researchers have discovered phishing campaigns mimicking US government bidding sites and procurement portals in a bid to scam federal contractors.

The campaigns feature well-crafted imitations of eProcurement login portals for the Departments of Transportation and Labor, intended to capture contractors’ credentials and other identifying information. Some of the sites feature pop-up windows inviting contractors to bid on projects.

For example, impostor web sites have domain names that begin with “transportation.gov” or “dol.gov”, but end at a foreign top-level domain. The fake DOT site gives an email address ending with “@dot-gov.us” instead of “@dot.gov”, and similar sites use the same trick in crafting deceptive “.us” addresses for state agencies.