Earlier this week, the Bank of Ireland was fined over €1.6 million for failures in relation to a Cyber Fraud case from back in 2014.

How did Bank of Ireland suffer Cyber Fraud?

What happened back then was a client of their Private Banking arm had their email account compromised by some cyber criminals. They sent an email to the Bank of Ireland staff requesting them to make payments of some €106,000 and the bank staff followed through on those instructions and made the payments.

The client subsequently realised the fraudulent transactions on their account. They notified the bank which immediately refunded the amounts to the client.

Why did they get fined?

However they did not report the matter to An Garda Shíochána in good time and they also did not highlight the incident correctly to the Central Bank of Ireland, the Irish regulator. So for those reasons they were given this significant fine.

If a bank can fall for this, how can I stop that happening in my business?

As I mentioned back in #WeekendWisdom number 31, this is very, very much like a CEO fraud or business email compromise. So the advice then still stands. Never carry out payment instructions based on an email alone.

Always seek verification of a payment instruction by way of maybe a telephone call. Only use a number that you have on file for that authorised person. Just never act on an email because compromising email accounts is incredibly easy.

So that’s it for this week. Let’s be careful out there and we’ll talk to you again next week.

How can L2 Cyber Security help you?

We offer a full range of training programmes, which can be delivered online or in-person*. This training can show your staff how this type of fraud is committed so they can be recognise it if the cyber criminals try it on them.

L2 Cyber Security are also a partner of CyberRiskAware for online self-directed Cyber Security Awareness training and Phishing testing.

Contact us for more information at info@L2CyberSecurity.com.

*With appropriate social distancing and other health and safety measures adhered to.

Follow us on Social media:

Liam is available on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Follow L2 Cyber on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

© L2 Cyber Security Solutions

The post #WeekendWisdom 039 Bank of Ireland Cyber Fraud appeared first on L2 Cyber Security Solutions Ltd..

What is CEO Fraud?

It is a type of scam that is perpetrated by organised criminal gangs where they will send an email, apparently coming from the CEO of that organisation. It will be sent to the CFO, financial director or accountant. They request that some invoice or an outstanding amount is paid urgently and by electronic funds transfer (EFT) to a new account. Details of this new account are then provided for the money to be transferred into.

It will also be implied in the email that the CEO is unavailable to take a telephone call to verify the instruction. They might be in a meeting or getting on board flight. So if the CFO, finance director or accountant makes that payment, that money is gone and it would be irrecoverable usually.

How big a deal is it?

It is a huge deal! In fact CEO fraud, or as they call it in the US, Business Email Compromise (BEC), it was actually the number one type of cybercrime by value in 2019. Some $1.7 billion dollars were lost to CEO fraud. Nearly 24,000 victims of that crime in 2019 in the US. So it’s quite significant.

How can you protect against it?

The simple way to protect against this is that no matter what the situation any email correspondence to instigate a payment must be verified by a follow-up telephone call. It has to be carried out. There must be another verification step there in order to validate the instruction.

So that’s it for this week. Let’s be careful out there and we’ll talk to you again next week.

How can L2 Cyber Security help you?

We offer a full range of training programmes, which can be delivered online or in-person*.

L2 Cyber Security are also a partner of CyberRiskAware for online self-directed Cyber Security Awareness training.

Contact us for more information at info@L2CyberSecurity.com.

*With appropriate social distancing and other health and safety measures adhered to.

Follow us on Social media:

Liam is available on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Follow L2 Cyber on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

© L2 Cyber Security Solutions

The post #WeekendWisdom 031 CEO Fraud appeared first on L2 Cyber Security Solutions Ltd..