Prepare your Staff
Let’s face it…there are no easy breaks in business. And the malicious players are happy to exploit your employees at every turn. The onslaught of emails and phone calls specifically designed to deceitfully extract money from your firm will not stop. The most important thing you can do is prepare your staff. Imagine playing a championship sporting event and having the other team’s playbook. What are the odds of returning as a victor?
Invest in Training
That’s right…use their playbook! While there are many potential scenarios for illegally extracting funds from a company, all of them boil down to a verbal or written request for money. Collect use cases for common scams and train your staff to recognize them. Show them emails and walk through scenarios that illustrate how other companies were tricked into releasing funds.
Create a Questioning Culture
Most of the scams involve an urgent request from a [spoofed] high-ranking executive to transfer, wire, or export funds without any additional approval required. Teach employees about your process for funds disbursement…why it was created with multiple levels of approval…and explain that it is okay to ask questions any time that process is not followed.
Share Experiences
Despite your best efforts to thwart malicious scams…it won’t stop the ongoing attempts. Reinforce the questioning culture by encouraging every employee to report attempts to a central point of contact in the company. Use this information to reinforce future training and be transparent…even when an attempt turns into a successful exploit. Everyone on your team needs to see and feel the commitment to stopping future losses and owning up to the ones in the past demonstrates a strong level of commitment to stopping them in the future.
In the end, the goal is to help employees recognize scam attempts and use them as the frontline barrier for stopping them.