Cybercrime: Criminals use fake emails to trick companies into transferring money. The number of cases is high, but companies can protect themselves.
(Excerpt from an article in the IHK Magazine, author Josef Stelzer — read the full article online here)
Authorized signatory Hans Müller* couldn't believe his eyes when he received the following email from his boss's email account at the beginning of September: “Dear Mr. Müller, we are currently preparing the acquisition of a company that requires, in particular, the necessary financial transactions.” The matter must be treated with absolute confidentiality. The takeover offer will be announced shortly. „Any discussion of the planned acquisition will be conducted exclusively by email to you or me, also to ensure adequate documentation in accordance with BaFin guidelines. Can we make a foreign trade payment with today's value date without raising any questions? The email was signed with the name of the managing director, Mr. Müller’s boss.
The authorized officer found the instructions strange. He immediately inquired with his boss. The email was indeed fake—a blatant attempt at fraud.
“This is a so-called CEO fraud and therefore a criminal offense that should be reported to the Central Contact Point for Cybercrime – ZAC for short – of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office,”
explains Svenja Hartmann, Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s legal and tax advisor.
Damage caused by CEO fraud
Such online attacks are not isolated incidents. Criminals forge emails and manipulate invoices, blackmail companies with malware, and steal large sums of money through cleverly orchestrated schemes. According to calculations by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the resulting damage tripled nationwide between 2014 and 2016, to over €75.2 million. The BKA determined a total potential damage of €171.4 million for these fraud attempts in 2016 alone.
Four to five companies report new CEO fraud cases to the Munich-based ZAC every month.
“We assume that a lot of money continues to flow due to such tricks, whether through routine or due to negligence in the affected companies,”
says Matthias Schmidt, internet expert at ZAC in Munich.
According to his estimates, the number of unreported fraud cases that victims either fail to recognize or report is at least 80 percent. […]
If you want to know more — read the whole article in Read the IHK magazine online.
