Česká Lípa – A company from Českolipsk lost more than a million crowns through fraud. The company employee sent the money to a foreign account because she thought she was acting on the director’s e-mail instruction. Its regional spokeswoman Ivana Baláková informed about this on the police website today.
“The company has become a victim of fraudsters who carry out so-called targeted phishing on specific companies. The perpetrators pick from publicly available sources, learn more about their structure and then send a fraudulent email to an accountant or secretary that looks like an email from the director companies,” said Baláková. According to her, the fact that money goes abroad reduces the ability of banks to block an unauthorized payment.
In this case, the victim of fraudsters was an employee of the company, which is in charge of payment relations with clients. On Monday around 12:00, an e-mail arrived in her work e-mail box, which on the surface appeared to be from the director of the company. In the e-mail, the writer asked whether they have enough cash in their foreign exchange account to make a payment abroad in the amount of 45,000 euros (1.064 million CZK), which is in a hurry. “The woman answered in the affirmative and specified the balance on the account. A second e-mail immediately arrived from the director instructing her to make this payment with the payment details. The woman transferred the money around 1:00 p.m. Only then did she meet her director in person and that’s when it came to light that he did not write these e-mails,” Baláková added.
A police spokeswoman said the only effective defense against such scams is prevention. “This consists in setting up secure internal communication in the company and high-quality security of e-mails. But simple advice will also help. If an e-mail arrives at the accounting office with an instruction from the director to make a payment in favor of a new customer, verify it with him in a different way than by e-mail, i.e. in person or by phone,” said Baláková.
The police also recommends payment verification if a regular customer requests by e-mail to send a payment to a different account than the one he used until now. “Be careful here and verify the payment details with him again other than by e-mail, a phone call or work Skype is offered,” added the police spokeswoman.
crime internet fraud Česká Lípa
