In a recent article that appeared in the itnews.com.au, financial scams have been brought squarely into the spotlight again.

It was reported that in South Australia, police have recently issued a warning to companies after a local business was scammed out of $1.5 million by offshore attackers masquerading as a supplier, having obtained sensitive business information through a targeted phishing campaign.

You can read the full article here

Police said that two other companies had also reported similar false phishing scam attempts, having falsely been billed for $117,000 and $347,000 respectively.

Minter Ellison recently reported that Australia is finally looking to introduce mandatory notification laws for data breaches.

Their article states, "The Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Bill 2016 was introduced to the House of Representatives by the Federal Attorney-General on 19 October 2016 and read for the second time. Debate is expected to continue today (20 October)."

Read the full Minter Ellison article here

Whaling & spear phishing is another term that is getting a lot of attention at the moment and involves phishing scams where businesses are targeted in an attempt to get confidential information for fraudulent purposes.

According to the ACCC website, "whaling & spear phishing scams differ from ordinary phishing scams in that they target businesses using information specific to the business that has been obtained elsewhere.

The scammer then sends a personalised email to either a group of employees or a specific executive officer or senior manager. The email is designed to look like it has been sent from a trustworthy source such as the employer or other staff members within the organisation."

The scam is designed to make you believe that the email requires urgent attention by following a link to a fake website. You may be then asked to:

enter confidential company information and passwords

provide financial details or enter them when making a payment for a fake software download

You can read the full ACCC report here

We can't state strongly enough how important Cyber Security is to your business. Have you got all the checks and balances in place?