The Washington State Department of Agriculture was notified of a “sponsored ad” SecureAccess Washington (SAW) spoofing campaign, involving paid search results that push people to fake web pages.

What do the ads look like?

These fake sponsored ads on search engines have links such as “SecureAccess – Washington” and “SecureAccess Washington – login”. If users click on the ad, it takes them to a page that looks like a legitimate government website asking for their username and password. If those credentials are provided, bad actors can then potentially use this to access accounts at state agencies.

One indication that the links are to malicious websites is they do not have a .gov address but instead have URLs such as “wasecuracces.com” or “washingtonst.net”

How can I protect my account?

If you are concerned that you clicked on one of these ads and entered your login information, you should change your SAW password (safe link) and any other passwords that use the same or similar credentials. We highly recommend using unique passwords for different accounts.