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Customer data obtained from previous high-profile hacks such as Optus and Medibank are being used to drive the attacks, says payments platform Eftsure.
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Fraud attacks on firms more than double as EOFY approaches
21 June 2023
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Fraud attacks on businesses have skyrocketed with a 250 per cent increase as the EOFY approaches, according to Eftsure.
Eftsure said an increase in the sophistication of scams targeting organisations was due to the consumer data breaches such as the attacks against Optus, Medibank and Latitude Financial.
Co-founder and CEO of Eftsure, Mark Chazan, said fraudulent actors are using the stolen personal data to target accounts payable teams with the incoming financial year on the horizon.
“With June 30 rapidly approaching, accounts payable teams are under increasing pressure, working overtime to close out the accounts before the year end,” said Mr Chazan.
“This pressure makes teams more vulnerable to attack, with scammers leveraging personal data sourced from the dark web to enable sophisticated email phishing attacks, social engineering attempts and other scams.”
“We normally see these attacks ramp up towards the end of the financial year - but in the past two months alone we’ve detected a 250 per cent increase in scam attempts.”
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The firm said the spike in lead-up to the EOFY is consistent with its recent data showing fraud attempts are increasing year-on-year. Fraud or account errors detected by Eftsure from January to May were up by 50 per cent from the same period last year.
Mr Chazan said firms need to be awake to the types of attacks and scams that fraudulent actors would use to try exploiting them.
“One of the most common scams we see is payment redirection, better known as business email compromise, where fraudsters compromise payments, often by using data sourced from the dark web to impersonate an employee or alter invoice details,” he said.
“Fake tax refund scams, phishing attacks and false invoice scams are also common, preying on individuals and businesses rushing to meet their tax obligations or close out invoices.”
“As EOFY approaches, the most important thing businesses can do is foster a strong security culture, including raising awareness of specific threats at this time of year, automated payee verification and educating employees to identify scams.”
Eftsure helps organisations securely pay their vendors by providing automated continuous control of outgoing payments. It protects over $120 billion in business payments each year, providing them with the tools to prevent payment fraud, onboard new vendors and manage the accuracy of existing vendors’ banking and compliance data.
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