3 Ways Fraudsters Compromise AP Security and Controls

Have you ever received an email from a vendor that was hacked? This is a common situation, particularly for accounts payable organizations that make large-dollar payments.

The fraudster may have compromised the vendor’s email to secretly view correspondence about a particular transaction, then intervened prior to your payment run by emailing you from the vendor’s account and requesting a change to the banking information. They covered their tracks by deleting sent emails, setting up automatic forwarding rules and changing the phone number in the vendor’s email signature to intercept the call you’re likely to make to confirm the banking change.

Now throw in the post-pandemic confusion about accepted procedures and security measures within AP, and the scammer has an even greater likelihood of successfully intercepting that large payment. How can you protect your organization from this and other frightening fraud scenarios?

"We’re not used to working in the office after a year or more away, and if you think that’s not going to impact your security, think again"

Chris Gerda, Risk and Fraud Prevention Officer, Bottomline Technologies