Scammers have been impersonating councillors in an attempt to get iTunes vouchers.

The current and former mayors of Medway have been the subject of the email con, which tried to dupe other councillors into buying vouchers for music.

The messages were discussed during a meeting of the council's business support overview and scrutiny meeting, where there were calls for further information and training on the risks of such scams and other cyber attacks.

Labour leader Cllr Vince Maple (Lab) said although the emails were not being received on a daily basis, it was a problem which comes up time and again.

He said they say they are from councillors but are addressed from a fake email, rather than their official medway.gov.uk addresses.

Committee vice chairman and former mayor, Cllr Habib Tejan (Con), described how he became aware of ones claiming to be from him when he was targeted two years ago.

The River ward representative said: "I had people ringing me and asking me if everything was alright. They said they received a strange email saying I was in need of some help or assistance and I said 'no, I didn't'.

"An email went around to members of the council requesting them to pay for Apple Music, or something like that.

"That weekend my phone was pretty busy and I had to apologise to everyone to say sorry, the email wasn't from me please do not give money or pay for anything. It was quite embarrassing."

Current Mayor Cllr Jan Aldous (Con) confirmed she was recently the target of the scam and that the council's IT team was looking into it.

Cllr Tejan added: "I am surprised it's still going on, these fraudsters probably try everything to try and steal from innocent people. It's terrible."

Cllr Maple said he felt most councillors were aware of the risks, but added: "The committee for a little while now has been asking for updates because there have been some London boroughs, other councils, and public sector areas like the NHS where their systems – not just elected people – have been cyber attacked. So we are waiting for a detailed briefing note on that."

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Tejan added: "From the amount of phone calls I had, I think people thought there was a need for help. Most people who called me thought there was a problem, or they were just confused.

"Maybe they were concerned because it was unusual for me to be emailing individuals asking them for help, so I don't think they knew it was a scam, they just were a bit concerned so they rang to make sure."

The council's IT department assured Cllr Tejan no one had stolen his passwords, but he makes sure he regularly changes them anyway.