5 Reminders to Help Protect Your Business from Holiday Fraud
Before the holiday rush, help your team spot suspicious emails, verify payment requests and keep safeguards in place.
Between year-end deadlines, holiday orders and employee vacations, business owners have plenty to manage and, in a crunch, might not be as careful as they usually are. However, it’s imperative that before acting on any email request, you take a moment to verify the request first.
Business email compromise, or BEC, occurs when a fraudster impersonates someone you trust, such as an executive, employee, vendor or business partner. These scams use deception and urgency to convince someone to transfer money, change payment instructions, purchase gift cards or share sensitive information.
Fraudsters may compromise a legitimate email account or create a lookalike email address or domain. Carefully review the sender’s full email address for slight differences—but remember that even a correct address does not guarantee a legitimate request.
“An urgent request should never replace your usual verification process,” says Mitzi Lee, Vice President and Director of Fraud at Central Pacific Bank.
Keep these five reminders in mind this holiday season:
- Use email security tools with anti-phishing protections.
- Independently verify wire transfers, ACH transfers, banking changes and large payments using a trusted phone number, not contact information provided in the email, BEFORE you transfer any funds.
- Consider requiring two people to approve financial transactions and changes to payment information.
- Train employees to recognize social engineering, executive impersonation and vendor fraud.
- Monitor for unusual login activity and unexpected changes to mailbox settings or permissions.
If you believe a BEC incident may have occurred, contact your bank immediately. Preserve related emails and other evidence, and report the incident to law enforcement, including the FBI at ic3.gov.
During the holiday rush, a brief pause to verify a request can help protect your business.
Learn more about protecting your business from fraud.
Sponsored by Central Pacific Bank. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender.
