Billing and accounting departments as well as cashiers in clubs are particularly affected
As the Watchlist Internet warns, billing and accounting departments in companies as well as cashiers in clubs are targeted by fraudsters. The emails are sent on behalf of the management of the respective company or club. Employees are asked to transfer large amounts of money abroad. If the transfer is carried out, the money is lost.
Some companies, particularly billing and accounting departments, receive messages from scammers posing as management. You will be asked how high the account balance is and whether a transfer of a certain amount is possible.
Hello sample cashier,
What is our current balance in the accounts today?
I would like you to arrange a payment of €21,000 for a payment today.
I'm currently out of town attending a seminar. I will receive the invoice as soon as it is available.
Let me know if I can email you the bank details so you can send the transfer today.
Greetings,
CEO name
What are the scammers hoping for?
The criminal senders try to steal large amounts of money from companies using the message. They pose as management and ask the accounting department to carry out a transaction abroad. In further correspondence, the recipients are often informed that the payment is secret and therefore no one else in the company is allowed to know about it for the time being.
The accounting department is supposed to silently transfer an amount abroad so that the company can make a purchase there. Employees who comply with the request cause considerable damage. The employer loses the entire amount because the emails are fictitious.
Can you spot CEO fraud in advance?
What such mailings often reveal is that although the name of the management is displayed in the email program, the email address itself is the wrong one. For example, the sender is “Max Musterchef”, while the email address is “example@falschesunternehmen.at”. It is also often noticeable that the writing style is different than usual, so sometimes the correct address is missing or it is used in slang instead of on a regular basis.
How do you protect your company from CEO fraud?
To prevent your company from becoming a victim of fraud, you can create a rule in your email program that ensures that messages with a domain similar to your company address are marked. For example, if your email address ends at musterunternehmen.at, the filter will mark all messages that have the similar ending muster_unternehmen.at or muster-unternehmen.com.
If the “reply to” address is different from the sender address, you can also display this in your email program. Have internal company communications use a different color scheme than messages to or from external. When making transfers, apply the four-eyes principle so that one person can never make transfers alone without first being checked by a second person.
Train your employees to understand that such mailings exist and that if there are any abnormalities, they should always consult those responsible.
Has your company been a victim?
If you have fallen for the CEO fraud, contact your bank immediately. Describe the incident to her and ensure that she immediately contacts the financial institution that received the money. In some cases it may be possible to avert financial damage. Inform the police that you have been the victim of a crime and discuss how to proceed. For this purpose, the Federal Ministry of the Interior has set up the contact point CEO-FRAUD@bmi.gv.at.
The Internet Watchlist recommends:
Make your employees aware of the dangers of CEO fraud and introduce security measures that prevent fraudulent international transfers!
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