With the seemingly unstoppable move to email as the primary form of business communication, there is the growing risk of fraud and theft from malicious emails apparently sent from someone inside your organisation, or from a supplier or contractor, that have actually been sent from an impostor attempting to extract money from you.
These emails usually take the form of a request from a senior official in your organisation requesting that an urgent payment be made (often with an instruction not to discuss the matter with anyone else) or a request from a contractor or supplier to send all future payments to a new bank account as they have changed their banking arrangements.
It can sometimes be quite difficult to identify these fraudulent emails as the perpetrator will often go to great lengths to make the email appear as genuine as possible, but sometimes some simple checks will often catch them out.
For those that do get through, putting proper procedures in place around your finance or payments function will reduce or eliminate the chances that action taken in response to such emails will actually result in financial loss.
A copy of our advice on dealing with such emails, and some suggestions to the procedures to put in place is available here
For specific information or advice relating to your business, we would advise contacting your IT department or adviser, but for general queries then please email ross.nicol@drummondlaurie.co.uk