An OSHA warning about that email alerting you to a coming inspection
Over the last week, emails purporting to be from OSHA carpet bombed inboxes. They told the recipient to prepare for a possible “compliance inspection” by clicking to read new OSHA guidelines.
Don’t click. The emails aren’t from OSHA, so sayeth OSHA in a Friday social media post.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the U.S. Department of Labor division that handles workplace safety, said in a LinkedIn post, “DOL and OSHA do NOT send notifications about upcoming compliance inspections. If you believe you’ve received a phishing message, please share this post with your colleagues.”
They subject line contains slightly ominous titles such as “OSHA Penalty Guidelines Update,” “Correct Hazards Before Inspection,” “Review These Guides Before the Visit” and “Self Inspection Toolkit for the Forthcoming OSHA Review”
Such phishing attempts hope the flippety-floppity stomachs government communication can bring will cause panicky forgetfulness of basic safety tips. As listed in OSHA’s LinkedIn post.
- “Do not click suspicious links:” The email asks the reader to “review the newly revised OSHA Penalty and Debt Collection Guidelines” and has a hyperlink below. That’s not a link to an OSHA or Department of Labor site. If you place your cursor over the hyperlink -- again, DO NOT CLICK, JUST HOVER -- the actual link will be revealed.
- “Do not download unexpected attachments:” If you don’t know what an attachment is and/or weren’t expecting an attachment from the emailing party, don’t download it.
- “Always verify the sender’s email address:” A Miami Herald reporter received five of these emails on Tuesday from five different email addresses (click on whatever arrow or icon allows you to see an emailers full address). All five ended with “Respectfully, Kristen Knebel, NP Officer, OSHA, Contact: 202-693-3435” with an email address of “knebel.kristen.cr@dol.gov.” So, right there, shenanigans, even though the email address ended with “dol.gov.”
If these got by your spam filters to your inbox, forward them to your company’s internal security person or persons.
This story was originally published July 27, 2025 at 12:41 PM.
