Increase in scams against businesses seen
We’ve discussed a certain scam that targets businesses only a handful of times in the past. The scam comes in a few different forms but the goal is always the same and that’s to steal money from the company.
There’s the business email compromise scam where a scammer spoofs their email address to make it look like they’re a high ranking executive at your company. The scammer will contact an employee that has financial responsibilities like payroll or accounts payable through the spoofed email. They’ll then instruct that employee to send money to a new direct deposit bank account or issue payment to a phony vendor who is in league with the scammer.
One particularly eerie scam was when scammers used deep fake voice technology to impersonate the company’s CEO and ordered a company director to wire $240,000 to a phony vendor.
Like we said, these stories were edge cases that only happened a handful of times. Also, they happened when most people were still working in offices and not working from home.
Now, with the current global pandemic, more people than ever are working from home and the scammers know this. Due to the record number of people working at home, the Better Business Bureau says that these business impersonation scams have increased exponentially. Without being able to just walk to your boss’s office it can be difficult to get confirmation from your higher-ups.
If you get an email from a company executive to wire transfer money, send gift cards, or make a payment right away that’s out of the ordinary, contact that executive by phone to make sure the request is legitimate or not. While some bosses may get gruff over this idea you can always tell them you’re just trying to keep the company secure and save the company money. Also, you may want to address this situation with your bosses if it hasn’t already been addressed and suggest some kind of system to prevent these scams from being successful.
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