Social Engineering Fraud
The last year has seen a huge increase in cyber attacks on individuals and small businesses. In particular there has been a huge increase in social engineering fraud, whereby an individual is tricked into disclosing information or transferring funds to an attacker. Examples of this include an invoice being intercepted with amended bank details inserted or an email that looks genuine asking you to disclose personal information.
Prevention is the best medicine when it comes to social engineering fraud:
- Carefully check the recipient on emails requesting your personal information
- Very the bank details of any new payee or amended payee over the phone
- Have a second person check through any large transactions before transferring funds
- Make sure your antivirus, firewall and software packages are set to automatically update as new security features are released
For organizations with appropriate controls in place, it is possible to purchase social engineering fraud cover within a broader cyber insurance policy. If this is of interest to you, please contact the office on 02 6959 3419.