WTF is the govdelivery.com domain?

Is it a scam or legit? I tried googling and was surprised to see very mixed answers.
I'd think any government website domain would end in .gov? At least in the US.

I got an email that looked like it was from my state's DMV regarding "tools to prevent theft" for Hyundai and Kia owners. At first glance it looked legit and I opened it. Then noticed the odd email domain. And the links in the email had suspect URL shorteners...

Google indexed the domain over 10 years ago, and there's a bunch of people saying it's a legit domain. But others pointing out how obviously sus it is...

TL;DR: I think I just gave my computer cancer.

Yeah just in your post alone without seeing the actual email, I can identify at least three red flags

streamofthesky posted...

I'd think any government website domain would end in .gov?

streamofthesky posted...

from my state's DMV regarding "tools to prevent theft" for Hyundai and Kia owners

streamofthesky posted...

And the links in the email had suspect URL shorteners...

Ive never heard of a government site not ending with .gov
url shorteners are always sus especially in emails

TMOG posted...

Yeah just in your post alone without seeing the actual email, I can identify at least three red flags

I agree with this completely.

https://www.dhs.gov/govdelivery-privacy-policy-and-notice
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/privacy-impact-assessments/govdelivery_7-10-19_pia_no_sig.pdf

FWIW, here are the DHS and FTC saying that they use GovDelivery - with the FTC's report there mentioning that it's provided by Granicus, which is what govdelivery.com redirected to for me.

Now, at most I'd only say that confirms it's a legit site that the government really does use. Not necessarily that some other party couldn't be using it for more nefarious purposes.

It's apparently a marketing firm that provides services to the government.

Mizznox posted...

https://www.dhs.gov/govdelivery-privacy-policy-and-notice
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/attachments/privacy-impact-assessments/govdelivery_7-10-19_pia_no_sig.pdf

FWIW, here are the DHS and FTC saying that they use GovDelivery - with the FTC's report there mentioning that it's provided by Granicus, which is what govdelivery.com redirected to for me.

Now, at most I'd only say that confirms it's a legit site that the government really does use. Not necessarily that some other party couldn't be using it for more nefarious purposes.

CableZL posted...

It's apparently a marketing firm that provides services to the government.

I also found that the Texas comptroller uses it to send emails.
That's the shit I mean... it sounds legit, but all the personal stories about it I see on like reddit, it sounds like a fucking phishing scam.

Ugh... when I opened it, my gmail momentarily crashed and reloaded before the email displayed. Then when I tried to back button out of it, it crashed for a sec and reloaded again on the email. I right clicked and made sure to go back to inbox after that, but that has me freaked out. Supposedly getting viruses from simply clicking on an email ('drive by download"?) isn't a concern anymore, gmail isn't supposed to allow cross-site scripting...

I'm gonna do a full Malwarebytes scan anyway. The quick scan came up clean.