Beware of cyber hackers this festive season
Lately they have seen many cases where people realise that the banking details on their invoices have been changed by a third party.
The Letaba Herald has borne witness to numerous companies and residents of the Tzaneen Area fall victim to cyber hackers – committing invoice fraud against the companies – this festive season.
Geyer Faurie, from Geyer Faurie Computer Services, helped the Letaba Herald put together a list of tips to protect our readers against these maniacal hackers.
First, let’s start with explaining what invoice fraud is:
“Well, this happens when a hacker takes your original invoice and tampers with it by changing the bank account details on the invoice and sending it out to your clients. “This tricks your clients into changing your banking details on their systems. This can be done via instructions via a phone call or more commonly via email.
“The client then pays the money into the account number on the invoice, thinking they have cleared their account with you – meanwhile they have paid the money into the hacker’s account,” explained Faurie, “My company has already seen two cases of invoice fraud the last two weeks.”
READ: TZANEEN: Chamber of Commerce go cyber safe
Lately they have seen many cases where people realise that the banking details on their invoices have been changed by a third party.
“This means you pay your service provider’s money into the bank account stated on the invoice, but you never receive the original invoice. “This usually happens with big amounts of money and clients don’t always realise that the account details have changed,” continues Faurie.
“The changed bank account details always has a bank punch on it with the correct date – usually in broken English. “This is one of the ways we noticed the invoice isn’t the original one. Some of our clients have paid amounts up to R2.1 million into the wrong account.”
These swindlers find information pertaining to potential victim’s contracts and suppliers on their websites. Faurie notes that people should really take into consideration if publishing that kind of information on the public domain is wise, considering that it’s been proven to help facilitate fraud.
They call this type of scam email phishing.
Below are a few tips that – if followed – can help prevent people from falling for this:
1. If you see the banking details have changed on an invoice, always confirm with the supplier that the bank account has changed.
2. If you think you or your supplier could be a victim of phishing or invoice fraud then you should both change your email passwords immediately!
3. Always make sure that your computer is virus free!
4. Never open any unfamiliar emails – even if it is a Word or Excel document.
5. Make sure the email address corresponds correctly with the person or company’s email address you are expecting it from, even if the attachment shows the business’ name.
6. Strong security protocols, and software, ensure that these types of attacks don’t happen. Businesses cannot ignore these sly practices because they could damage the company’s reputation.
7. Make a habit of double checking and comparing bank account details from new invoices with old ones.
