GUELPH – Police are urging businesses and organizations to take caution after a rise in frauds known as spear phishing.
Police say spear phishing fraud is one of the most prevalent frauds targeting businesses and organizations. Fraudsters take their time to collect information on their intended targets, so they can send convincing emails from a seemingly trusted source. Fraudsters will infiltrate or spoof a business or individual’s email account.
The media release goes on to say they create a rule to send copies of incoming emails to one of their own accounts and will comb through the emails to study the sender’s use of language and look for patterns linked to important contacts, payments and dates.
“Fraudsters launch their attack when the owner of the email account can’t be easily contacted by email or by phone. It may look like a top executive sending an email to their Accounts Payable department requesting an urgent payment to close a private deal. If the fraudsters haven’t infiltrated the executive’s email account, they may set up a domain similar to the company’s and use the executive’s name on the account. The contact information they need is often found on the company’s website or through social media.”
Guelph Police are urging to keep an eye out for the following variations of this phishing scam:
• A business receives a duplicate invoice with updated payment details supposedly from an existing supplier or contractor.
• An accountant or financial planner receives a large withdrawal request that looks like it’s coming from their client’s email.
• Payroll receives an email claiming to be from an employee looking to update their bank account information.
• Members of a church, synagogue, temple, or mosque receive a donation request by email claiming to be from their religious leader.
• An email that seems to come from a trusted source asks you to download an attachment, but the attachment is malware that infiltrates an entire network or infrastructure.
• An email that seems to come from trusted source asks you to buy gift cards.
• Correspondence or email claiming to be from your landlord asking you to send your rent payment using an alternate payment method or to a different account.
Police say they encourage all businesses and organizations to take the time to verify any communications, and to have an independent verification process in place prior to making any payment changes with suppliers.
