Scammers Are Using Direct Deposit Requests To Steal Money 

January 30, 2019

Written by wukovits

Last year, the FBI issued a warning regarding BEC (Business Email Compromise) scams.  Unfortunately, security professionals report that those types of scams are increasing in frequency, and worse, the most recent ones come with a disturbing new twist. The latest incarnation of the scam targets employees, seeking to move their direct deposited paychecks into accounts controlled by the hackers.

The execution is simple enough.  All a hacker needs is the same information as what they get when they steal a person’s identity.  Armed with a target’s email address and banking information, all a hacker has to do (in most cases) is send a formal request to HR, explaining that the target has a new bank account and asking that the paycheck be sent to the details provided.

It all seems legit to the HR personnel receiving the request, because all of the information is accurate. In a growing number of cases, nobody even thinks to check or confirm that the switch has been authorized by the employee in question.

One of the researchers who has been following the growth in popularity of this approach had this to say about guarding against it:

“If a two-factor online system is not being used, we recommend ensuring an element of human contact is established before completion of the request, in addition to checking that the email address is from a legitimate source.”

How big a problem is this type of thing?

According to the latest FBI statistics, between October 2013 and May 2018, businesses suffered total losses estimated at more than $12 billion, worldwide.  If that doesn’t get your attention, few things will.  This is a large and growing problem, but thankfully, it’s one that can be easily fixed by putting a few additional common sense safeguards in place.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Bayou Tech

We provide solutions for your business. Find out how we can help.

Related Articles

New Graphene Technology May Increase Hard Drive Storage

HDDs are old, well understood technology. They haven't changed much in recent years. In fact, increasingly, people are writing them off, preferring SSDs for their greater speed and smaller size, even though HDDs are less expensive. The clever folks at the University...

Some Amazon Device Features May Have Security Risks

Have you heard of Amazon Sidewalk? If not, it's definitely something you should be aware of. Depending on your point of view, the new feature, which was enabled by default on a wide range of Amazon devices by default on June 8 of this year (2021) is either...

Email Unsubscribe Scam Can Easily Fool Any User

Scammers are increasingly relying on a tried and true bit of social engineering to fool unsuspecting users into unwittingly signing up to receive a flood of additional spam email. They accomplish this by blasting out an email asking recipients if they wish to...

Send us a message

Your message was sent.