How Not to Fall Victim to Email Fraud for your Company
It is only normal that we all want to do everything we can to please our bosses, after all it is our bosses that pay our wages and keep us employed so we have a roof over our heads and food on the table, but are their times you should be cautious of going out of your way to please your boss?
Mattel, the well known toy manufacturer of the Barbie brand, and many more recently fell foul to email fraud in a big way. An email was received from the boss that was very similar to this “Hello, Have you got a minute? I need you to process a bank transfer for me urgently. Let me know when you’re free and I will give you the details of the account you need to send the money too. Thanks”
The receiver quickly responded, keen to impress their boss and show they were ready for anything their boss needed, the email was sent to the Finance Executive and they sent £2.3 million to an account in China, having been fooled by a spam message that was not sent to them by their boss and new chief executive Christopher Sinclair.
Luckily Mattel did eventually get their money back, but this is not the case for many business and some small businesses have gone bust due to errors and email frauds similar to this. Previously criminals of this type targeted individuals, but now they have realised the win is much bigger with businesses.
If you would like to avoid falling into email fraud there are some things you can do, for example strengthen your spam filtering systems, there are some filters that look out for keywords such as transfer or payment, which will flag up messages to be wary of. Speak to your staff to check for tell tale signs, for example one letter in the company name may have been changed in the email address so you may not even notice unless you look carefully.
Put processes into place to protect your business against email fraud, such as double-checking everything employees do, questions any unusual requests and be aware of emails and requests that seem strange or unusual.
All of the companies we work with at The Money Cloud adhere to very strict regulations and are very aware of fraudulent scams. If in doubt it is best to speak with them and they will be able to conduct due-diligence on the account details you are being asked to send the money to.
