COMPUTER hackers, posing as AbaQulusi’s municipal manger, Bonga Ntanzi, made an audacious attempt to steal R175 000 from the town’s coffers recently.
The hackers sent three emails to the municipality’s Finance Department on January 23 from Mr Ntanzi’s email address, municipalmanager@abaqulusi.gov.za
The first email was sent at 8.59am and read: “Hello,
Good morning. Are you available? Just a quick question. What is the present cash balance in the General fund account?
Thanks
Bonga”
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“The manner in which the email was written immediately made Finance staff member, Lois Tupper, suspicious. First, I never send a general email to the Finance Department. I always address the correspondence to a specific person. Secondly, why would I ask what the balance is in the account? I am a signatory on the account and can check this easily for myself. Lois decided not to respond to the email,” said Mr Ntanzi.
The second email was sent 15 minutes later. It said: “Okay. We need to pay a consultant today, will send necessary support documentation later. Let me know when you are ready so I can send the details to make a EFT.
Bonga”
“Lois knows that I am a stickler for following correct procedures. There is no way I would ever request for payment to be made to any account until all the paperwork is in order. Even an invoice has to be supported by signed paperwork that indicates that the goods purchased were received at the municipality and had been checked by a staff member to ensure that it was in good order. I am very strict about paperwork because, if you drop your guard for just one minute, the auditor general classifies it as irregular expenditure,” explained Mr Ntanzi. “The fact that this individual said that I will provide the documents later was second red flag for Lois.”
The third email was sent to the Finance Department at 11.49am the same day. It read: “I will like you to process this payment immediately, kindly find below the account information and amount to be paid.
Name: J Makhale
Acct: 1422254338
Capitec bank
Branch code 470010
Amount: R175,000.00
Kindly email me proof when the payment have been made. Keep this conversation via email alone. Waiting to read from you soon.
Thanks.
Bonga”
“Lois found it suspicious that the bank account was in an individual’s name and not a business name, and why keep the conversation in email only? For these reasons, she did not pay. At the time, I was out of the country. When I returned on January 29, Lois brought me the emails and that was when we confirmed that my address had been hacked. It is frightening, the audacity and the ability to hack into my account and pretend to be me. If Lois had not been so alert the municipality would have been R175 000 poorer,” concluded Mr Ntanzi.
