CEO Fraud Protection

22. July 2021

In recent years, several companies have already fallen victim to a CEO fraud attack. The financial losses were sometimes in the millions. Find out below why CEO fraud protection is particularly important right now and how SecuMail^® helps.

What is CEO fraud?

CEO fraud is a scam in which an external person pretends to be a manager and sends an email to an employee. In the e-mail, the fraudsters usually ask you to disclose confidential information (e.g. account balance) or even transfer sums of money to an external account (usually located abroad). Since these e-mails sometimes look deceptively real and similar or the same names/e-mail addresses are used as those of the management, it can easily happen to fall for a scam.

Why should you protect yourself from this?

Why CEO fraud protection is very important is shown, among other things, by a documented case of a SecuMail^® interested party: Here, a fraudster sent emails to the company from the outside and pretended to be the managing director. His e-mails were deceptively real. An accountant fell for the fake mails and, after a short communication with the cybercriminal, transferred a five-digit amount to an account abroad. The company never saw the money again.

The last year in particular has caused some processes in digitization to grow particularly quickly (triggered by the Covid 19 pandemic, among other things). This process can also bring some dangers:

Largeattack surface for cybercriminals
[cf. BSI: “The Situation of IT Security in Germany 2020”, p.33, lines 55 – 69]
According to the BKA: The circumstances of the Corona pandemic are “a perfect breeding ground for cybercriminals”
(BKA, “Special Evaluation of Cybercrime in Times of the Corona Pandemic”, p.1, line 22)

Since many of the new requirements for the IT infrastructure will remain permanent even after the pandemic (e.g. home office, increased digital communication), it is all the more important to protect them from now on. Accordingly, the aspect of CEO fraud protection is becoming more and more important.

How can you protect yourself from this scam?

CEO Fraud Filter with SecuMail: Verifying every single email adds up and costs your employees time. In addition, in some cases, a trained employee eye is not enough. SecuMail^® therefore protects its customers with CEO fraud protection so that CEO fraud emails do not get through in the first place. Technically, this feature works by SecuMail^® filtering all external mails. This means that all mails coming from outside are blocked and only internal mails are accepted. LEARN MORE →

Even more protection through individual CEO Fraud Protection with SecuMail^®: To go onestep safer, the SecuMail^® Filter Plus package offers you individual CEO Fraud Protection. This means that particularly exposed employees or members of upper management can also be equipped with strict protection against spoofing (identity theft). In addition to the email addresses of the “bosses”, their first and last names in the mail headers are also examined. LEARN MORE →

If you are interested or have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Contact us by e-mail at support@secumail.de or by phone at +49 (0) 8171-246920!