Dear Members,
We want to alert you to a recent phishing attempt targeting the Southwest Community Radio System.
Some of you may have received an email appearing to come from “Southwest Community Radio System” but sent from a random email address. The message claims to be an alert from a “secure messaging system” from an individual named Mark Taylor and contains an HTML attachment. Please be aware:
- We do not have a secure messaging system.
- We do not have anyone named Mark Taylor in our registration.
- The attachment is malicious and may prompt you for credentials. This is a phishing attempt designed to steal your login credentials.
What happened
At this time, the most likely cause appears to be a user account on our website that was compromised, which may have been used to access our membership list that’s available to all members. Out of an abundance of caution, this list has been removed from the site. The list included your callsign, first name, email address, and in some cases, other radio clubs you belong to.
What you should do
- If you opened the attachment and entered your credentials, please reset your SWCRS password immediately.
- If you reuse that password on other accounts, reset it everywhere it is used.
- Do not open suspicious attachments or links that appear unusual, even if they reference SWCRS.
Impacts
At this time, there is no indication that other sensitive data—such as passwords, mailing addresses, PTT-IDs, or other profile information—was accessed. The SWCRS follows standard practices:
- All passwords in our system are salted and encrypted; we do not store plain-text passwords, we can never know your password.
- For members who donate through our site: SWCRS never handles your financial information. Payments are processed securely through Stripe and PayPal. We do not have access to your credit card numbers, expiration dates, or security codes.
We will continue monitoring this issue and will keep you updated if anything changes. At this time, we are not forcing a site-wide password resets, but will advise if additional investigation reveals it is warranted.
Thank you for your vigilance and continued support.
73,
The Southwest Community Radio System Team