Insights and resources to help safeguard your company against fraud

Whether in the physical or digital realms, it is the distortion or concealment of an important piece of information that’s used to manipulate team members or business associates into unknowingly taking actions that harm your company. 

A digital example is a phishing attack. This involves scammers duplicating or taking control of a company email account and then impersonating the owner to trick others into handing over access codes or ACH transfer info. A physical form of fraud is card skimming. It involves placing a lookalike receiver over the card reader slot of an ATM or point-of-sale device to gather corporate credit card details for future use. 

As a direct or indirect consequence of fraud, your company can suffer financial, operational, or reputational damage. For example, scammers can impersonate a business associate to trick team members into compromising your network security, then access and steal the stored credit card information of clients. This creates an immediate financial hit to your company and causes reputational damage with current clients who’ve been impacted—and potential clients. 

Two of the most prevalent forms of fraud are bank fraud and cybercrime. Forms of bank fraud include Automated Clearing House (ACH) fraud, check fraud, and card skimming. Social engineering fraud, phishing, business email compromise, and card not present fraud fall under the category of cybercrime.

Reports of fraud should be filed with the FBI at tips.fbi.gov or with their Internet Crime Complaint Center(IC3). Additional resources at the federal level are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the Federal Trade Commission—all of which also have teams devoted to combatting fraud. Depending upon where the fraud occurred, relevant state-wide law enforcement and state consumer fraud protection services should also be contacted.