TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Hackers send misleading messages to government employees in order to try and obtain passwords for their email accounts, reports said Tuesday (Nov. 16).

According to the October report by the National Information and Communication Security Taskforce (NICST, 行政院國家資通安全會報), the hackers send emails to the civil servants telling them that use of their email accounts will be suspended. The messages are linked to phishing sites with the aim of finding out the government user’s email account passwords and eventually obtaining confidential information, CNA reported.

During October, there were 50,545 threats by hackers directed at Taiwan government users, with 45% consisting of attacks against websites and 25% scanning techniques to collect computer network information.

In the phishing scheme, hackers masquerading as official email system operators would try and persuade government employees that either their email password or account was about to expire, asking them for a new password. Civil servants have already received advice on how to recognize and counter those tactics, the report said.