Four college students (pictured right with Director Laurie Doran) recently joined NJOHSP as part of the agency's Spring Internship Program where they will assist staff in the Intelligence Management, Communications, Infrastructure Security, and Operations bureaus. The program helps interns develop and apply their educational training to a real-world setting as they explore various NJOHSP career paths. Students may receive college-approved credits for completed internships. The spring program began January 21, 2025, and concludes April 11, 2025. Internships are also offered during the summer and fall semesters. For more information, visit the NJOHSP careers web page.

NJOHSP launched the first of its 21 planned UAS Training programs for law enforcement personnel on Friday, January 10, 2025, at the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office facility in Freehold, New Jersey. Courses will be held in each of the state’s 21 counties and are intended to provide information regarding UAS to assist first responders with preventing, preparing for, protecting against, and responding to public safety incidents involving drones. For more information, read the full NJOHSP press release.

Tax season is ripe with social engineering schemes intending to steal individual's tax information, including W-2s, personally identifiable information (PII), dates of birth, bank account or credit card numbers, and driver's license numbers. The New Jersey Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Cell (NJCCIC) recently detected phishing emails targeting New Jersey State employees, in which the senders are impersonating the IRS. The threat actors used sender spoofing to display that the message is sent from “IRS pay.service@irs[.]net,” when the envelop sender and true sender email address is “www-data@woyo[.]com.” The emails assert that the recipient has an outstanding tax balance and warn that any delay in payment could lead to fees and legal action. Included in the email is a link which likely leads to a web page requesting personally identifiable information, such as Social Security numbers, and payment card details to pay supposed tax balances. If the recipient submits this information, the threat actor orchestrating the phishing campaign will steal it.

Recommendations:

• Beware of communications purporting to be sent from the IRS. The IRS does not contact individuals by phone, email, or text message to solicit information or money. Instead, the IRS sends notices and bills through postal mail.
• Exercise caution with communications. Refrain from divulging sensitive information via phone, email, or text message without verifying the requestor via a separate means of communication before taking any action.
• Navigate directly to authentic or official websites by typing the legitimate URL into the browser instead of clicking on links in messages, and refrain from entering login credentials on websites visited via links delivered in messages.
• Use official and verified websites and applications when sharing personal, sensitive, or financial information.

The Grants Management Bureau (GMB) has reviewed and prioritized all federal fiscal year 2024 Nonprofit Security Grant Program – National Security Supplemental applications. The grant provides funding support for facility hardening and other physical security enhancements and activities to nonprofit organizations that are at high risk of terrorist or other extremist attack. The application information and prioritization sheets have been submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for review.