Companies are being ripped off left, right and center by cyber scammers impersonating CEOs and ordering confidential financial transactions to be carried out. Steps can be taken, however, to protect your organization – including technical measures.
Over the past month two fascinating articles relating to CEO fraud have caught my eye – an interesting piece in the German “Handelsblatt” newspaper, which reports on a case of attempted fraud at Ritter Sport that thankfully failed, and an informative feature by the “digital pioneers” at “t3n” illustrating vividly how the CEO scam works by looking at examples from their very own company.
These kinds of details are important in combating an issue which – unlike the rather similar “long-lost relative” scam rife in more private settings – remains surprisingly unknown across the business world, despite the best efforts of BSI and other organizations. Only staff who have been suitably sensitized and are alert to the potential threat will be able to unmask a virtual attempt to impersonate an authority figure in time and prevent the fraud effectively.
In addition to trainings offered to users to avoid business email compromise, technical tools also provide effective assistance in the fight against CEO fraud. Retarus’ Email Security, for instance, includes a CxO Fraud Detection function in the ATP package (Advanced Threat Protection). This service subjects emails to an algorithmic check, which identifies “From-Spoofing” and “Domain-Spoofing” amongst other functions. This facilitates the dependable identification of messages from fake sender addresses, allowing them to be filtered out. More details are available on our website or directly from your local Retarus representative.
