This holiday season, keep fraudsters on the naughty list – and away from your business
The holiday season is upon us, and businesses of all kinds are gearing up for the annual surge in sales. Amidst the distractions of the holiday hustle and bustle, fraudsters are also busy preparing for their most lucrative season.
Learn about fraud schemes that are prevalent during the holidays — and be sure to follow our seasonal fraud prevention tips to help safeguard your business and truly enjoy this time of year.
Watch out for these holiday fraud schemes.
Some of the biggest security threats to businesses we’ve discussed this year are likely to rear their heads during the holidays.
Business Email Compromise (BEC): During the holidays, businesses may order more inventory than usual or send gifts to clients, employees, and vendors. This can result in irregular purchase activity and a higher volume of invoices, creating perfect opportunities for fake payment requests and invoice fraud. Follow these guidelines to help ensure your business doesn’t get scammed.
Deepfakes: Companies often make charitable donations this time of year. Fraudsters may use artificial intelligence (AI) to clone the voice of a senior executive and send fake voice messages authorizing payments to fake charities, which actually go to criminals. Get tips to avoid falling prey to deepfakes.
Spoofing: Increased event planning, purchases, and transaction activity often mean receiving more text or email order confirmations, and tracking links from vendors you’re less familiar with. Fraudsters may take advantage of the opportunity to sneak in fake texts, emails, or URLs that go to cloned webpages. Give yourself a refresher on how to identify and avoid spoofed communications.
Follow this pre-holiday checklist to start the season off right.
Performing a few housekeeping items ahead of time will put your business in a great position for the holidays.
- Review your accounts. In addition to daily reviews, conduct a deeper account review before the holidays to ensure your accounts are secure and any issues are resolved before the holiday rush.
- Check your account alert settings. Ensure you’ll be notified right away of suspicious transactions or activity with account alerts.
- Enable multi-factor authentication. Gain an extra layer of security on your accounts.
- Prepare a seasonal staff plan: Predetermine policies and procedures for payroll advances or reimbursements for all employees and establish clear payment processing approval standards, such as a second trusted individual to approve payments.
Review and reinforce your security policies.
Tighten up your safety practices, if needed, and make sure all employees are aware of and abide by them throughout the season.
- Strengthen your passwords. Use passphrases of at least 15 characters and avoid password reuse across multiple systems.
- Change passwords on a regular basis. To prevent a breach, update your passwords immediately and notify tech support.
- Exercise caution with email links and attachments. Be on the lookout for phishing and other business email compromise scams.
- Never share sensitive information. Do not disclose passwords or account numbers over the phone or through text messages, and verify callers before sharing any details.
- Watch for spoofed caller ID and area codes. If something seems suspicious, hang up and call a known phone number to verify.
- Verify the legitimacy of websites. Double-check URLs to ensure the website hasn’t been spoofed before entering sensitive information, especially for vendors and financial institutions
- Scrutinize charitable donation requests. Scammers often exploit holiday generosity to deceive individuals and businesses.
Don’t let fraudsters steal your joy this holiday season.
With a little preparation and added care, you can help protect your business from fraud and have a holly, jolly holiday season.
To learn more about KeyBank’s core fraud solutions and merchant fraud solutions, call your payments advisor or relationship manager.
Content provided for informational and educational purposes only and is in no way to be construed as financial, investment, or legal advice. We cannot and do not guarantee their applicability or accuracy in regards to your individual circumstances. All examples are hypothetical and are for illustrative purposes. We encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding all personal financial issues.