Why Worry About Fraud Invoices?
Fraud Invoices could victimize any business. Invoice fraud is a type of attack in which a fraudster sends fraud invoices to targeted businesses. The main objective behind sending fraud invoices is to attempt to extract money from companies with vulnerabilities in their account payment processes. The challenging part is that invoice fraud goes undetected until it is too late.
Organizations big and small are slowly becoming cyber-aware. Almost all organizations spend huge sums of money for their email security. The question then arises, despite all this, how do fraud invoices reach your business partner or a buyer?
4 Ways Fraud Invoices Reach Your Buyer
No DMARC Policy Set
Cybercriminals impersonate known and familiar email addresses to perpetrate email fraud. This is where DMARC policies come into the picture. A DMARC policy allows you to set your email policy to ‘reject’, ‘accept’, or ‘quarantine’. Then, the actions taken next depend on the DMARC policy which has been set. Without a DMARC policy, anyone can send email on behalf of your domain with fake invoice or payment instruction to your buyers. Plz tweak and add –
Its purpose is to make it harder for threat actors to conduct phishing attacks that spoof brands and get those messages delivered to inboxes.
With DMARC, organizations can create a record of who is authorized to send emails from their domain. This helps to prevent misuse of a company brand in phishing campaigns.
Lookalike Domain (Domain Spoofing)
Attackers can spoof brand names, and introduce small, almost unnoticeable changes in the spelling of the domain (typosquatting). For e.g. rahul@workorg.com will become rahul@work0rg.com (0 instead of o). The display name for the email remains valid, but until you hover over the email to understand the real email address behind it, you are bound to respond to spoofed domains.
Display Name Spoofing
In display name spoofing, the email being sent looks like it’s coming from a trusted source. As the sender email address is not forged, it is difficult to block such emails. For e.g. Ram S Patel <rsp123@gmail.com> can be spoofed and used instead of the real one – Ram S Patel < ram@abcompany.in >
Recipient Mailbox Compromised / Account Takeover (ATO)
This happens when attackers gain illegal access to an account. With this access,
- A fraudster crafts identical looking suppliers invoices (fake invoice) and sends it with a spoofed email to the buyer’s organization,
- Or they simply send a spoofed email with instructions for releasing funds, this time into another account.
In both the cases, the bank account details are replaced with new account details.
It can also be a case where an internal team member is involved in the invoice scam, who passes sensitive inside information to an outsider for conducting a fraud.
Reading Resources: 5 Quick Steps for Email Invoice Fraud Prevention.
Contact us for further assistance and guidance on your online security.