A police report was filed yesterday documenting a scam that saw Puerto Rico’s Industrial Development Company send around $2.6 million dollars to criminals. Rubén Rivera, the company’s finance director said a payment was made on January 17th, 2020 when an email was received that claimed a change was made to an account linked to remittance payments. After discovering the loss, it was immediately reported to the FBI. The Puerto Rican government has declined to answer more technical details about the scam, but an internal investigation is ongoing to attempt to uncover how exactly an employee was tricked by it.
Analyst Notes
Any time an email is received requesting any type of money transfer or account information updates it should be verified. Contacting a reliable source from the company that is requesting funds or changes is a good method to help verify the legitimacy of the request. Companies should also consider regularly auditing their employees to make sure they are following proper security practices. This can be done by running test phishing campaigns amongst other measures.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/02/12/business/ap-cb-puerto-rico-phishing-scam.html
