RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- The Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral in Raleigh sent an email warning parishioners about a fraudulent email claiming to be from the cathedral's pastor, Monsignor David Brockman.
A spokesman for the Diocese of Raleigh, which has more than 40,000 members, said they've had these types of scams at other churches in the past, where the impersonator asks for gift cards.
The email came from a Gmail address.
While this scam impacts Raleigh's largest Catholic church, anybody can fall victim to this type of scam.
If you get a similar email, cyber security expert Brandon Champion, of Syneos Health in Morrisville said the first thing you should do is look at where the email is coming from.
"Anything that comes from a Gmail address, a Hotmail, or a Yahoo, any of the free webmail addresses are things you want to take a second look at," Champion said. "Most churches, most larger organizations, will have their own domain. Most of them will end in a .org perhaps, or even a .com."
He said you should look out for grammatical errors.
"Read the email itself," Champion said. "Most of the time, there's going to be spelling mistakes, capitalization errors, punctuation errors. Those are the tell-tale signs of a scam."
He said thieves tend to ask for gift cards because they can't be traced.
"So a lot of times, they'll want the codes for the gift cards or they'll want the gift cards themselves," Champion said, adding that these types of scams targeting churches are popular. "Unfortunately, the cyber criminals, morality is not their strongpoint."
The cathedral said on its website: "Always call the office to verify communication claiming to be from clergy or staff if you are unsure of its origin."
Here are more tips from the Cathedral:
Clues that help to identify fraudulent email are: