May 21, 2015
By Julie Montanaro
Many of you have probably received e-mails that promise riches from a prince or magnate overseas in return for a sum of money.
Internet phishing schemes like that are common, but there’s a new one that’s dropped a line in Tallahassee and you may be surprised how it tries to hook you. It’s disguised as an email from your own boss.
Phyllis Burkhart is the comptroller at the Earl Bacon Agency in Tallahassee. She recently got an email from her boss asking her to transfer tens of thousands of dollars.
“I read it and I thought … this doesn’t sound right.,” Burkhart said. “They just requested that I transfer $20,000 is how it was phrased.”
Burkhart was the one that got away. She didn’t do it. A new phishing scam has hit the in-boxes of at least a dozen small businesses in town.
“A new threat called Boss Phishing is out there and people are actually falling for it,” IT consultant Blake Dowling said.
Blake Dowling with Aegis Business Technologies says crooks are perusing company web sites and directories and using those names and titles to create seemingly legitimate domain names and emails.
Most of them are sent from an address that is off by a single letter or may have a “co” added at the tail end of the company’s name.
“What they’re trying to do is find something that will pass a casual glance,” Dowling said.
Dowling says the emails are typically seeking money transfers from 10,000 to 100,000 dollars and at least one local business has already been duped.
“And the one business that you’re aware of that’s fallen for this scam … how much did they lose?”
“$40,000,” Dowling said.
“Chances of getting it back?”
“Zero.”
Dowling says businesses with multiple offices where the boss may not be in the same building – or even the same city – as the employee getting the email may be especially at risk.