Payment fraud is occurring regularly and all businesses need to act carefully.
This fraud occurs when a fraudster pretends to be an existing supplier to a business and attempts to change bank account payee details either by email or forged headed notepaper.
Fraudsters generally ask that a specific payment which they are aware of through hacking be redirected to a new account or that all future payments be made to a new account.
Fraudsters have now taken this scam to a higher level by using manipulated media or “deep-fake” technology to con companies into making a fund transfer.
Deep-faking is the doctoring of content to give realistic renderings of people by replacing one person’s face with that of another or ”lip syncing” in which a subject’s mouth moves along with an audio track that is being laid over it.
In a recent case $10 million was wired to fraudsters who used artificial intelligence to impersonate an executive on the phone.
If a business receives a request on changing payment methods or an unusual payment request from a supplier or an individual working within the business, it should completely verify the change payment instructions.
Links or contact details contained in a email or letter requesting the change could be fraudulent so they should never be used.