Australian Govlink Issue 2 2018 | Page 33

31 EFTsure Visual warnings appear prior to approving Roll over the visual status to get a summary It was later found that the email address impersonating Mr Kahlbetzer was a different address, having a single character altered, although it had been manipulated to appear exactly as is it were Mr Kahlbetzer himself. The fraudster then transferred the funds into various account scattered across the globe, including countries such as the US, Hong Kong, Britain, the United Arab Emirates, Ghana and Nigeria. Tim Bentley, the ANZ Managing Director of Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm discussed the severity of these scams across Australia: “These scams will usually come in a clever guise thanks to a lot of background information collected by the attacker, usually via LinkedIn. They could pretend to be an existing supplier or a trusted person with authority in the organisation.” “Something like a credit card scam or a ransomware attack might mean $10,000, or a couple of bitcoins. BEC attacks mean huge sums which can undermine a smaller company and significantly rock a larger one. The attackers go for as much as they can, and even tech-savvy companies such as Facebook and Google have been taken for more than $100 million over the last two years.” (Smart Company) “Businesses were found to be the target of approximately 40% of security breaches.” (Source: ITRC Data Breach Reports) According to statistics from the FBI, there was a 2,370% increase in identity theft losses across the globe during 2016, with reports being filed by 131 countries reporting the scam. Between the October 2013 and December 2016, businesses around the world lost as much a USD$5.3 billion to email fraudsters, marking a significant ongoing issue to companies of all sizes. GOVLINK » ISSUE 2 2018