Northern Territory Police is urging small business owners and not for profit organisations to get cyber savvy at the free Cyber Smart for Business Briefing in Alice Springs this month

A ‘borderless crime’, cybercrime impacts businesses of all sizes and in all locations including the Northern Territory where the NT Police Cybercrime Unit has observed an increase of cybercrime reports of up to 40 per cent this year.

Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Craig Windebank of the Cybercrime Unit said businesses could protect themselves from falling victim against costly cybercrime by attending the Cyber Smart for Business Briefing.

“The increasing prevalence of Business Email Compromise, an email-based cyber fraud is of particular concern, with the average loss per victim business in the Territory reaching $70,000, yet it is preventable.”

“This type of cybercrime can involve impersonated emails or fraudulent invoices seeking to divert business payments to criminals via changed bank details”.

“A cybercriminal that has compromised an email account of a business is usually not identified until it is too late, with some businesses losing hundreds of thousands of dollars”.

“Once the funds have been received into a cybercriminal’s bank account the funds are generally immediately transferred overseas and become unrecoverable.”

“Business Email Compromise can also result in the loss of commercially sensitive or private information that can be on-sold and used in further offending.”

“The risk of this crime type can be minimised by implementing IT security controls and business payment process controls and the Cyber Smart Briefing will explain how you can implement this.”

“The Cyber Smart for Business Briefing will also detail current cyber threats identified by the Australian Cyber Security Centre affecting businesses around the country and cyber security protections, to give you the information to better protect your business when online.”

“This briefing is relevant for any business and not for profit organisation that transacts online - for email, banking, issuing invoices or other activities.”

“Attend this free briefing to protect your business from costly cyber fraud and resulting business disruption and reputation damage.”

Register to attend at becybersmart.nt.gov.au

Event details:

Date: Thursday 22 August 2019

Time: 2pm to 3.30pm

Venue: Mercure Alice Springs Resort, 34 Stott Terrace, Alice Springs

Cost: Free

Case Study:

A Northern Territory business suffered a compromise to their computer system that allowed the offenders to gain access to their email account. The offenders monitored the emails sent and received by the business for an extended period, allowing them to develop an understanding of the language and billing formats used by the business and their clients.

The offenders later created an internet domain name that was very similar to that used by the victim business, and used this to send realistic emails to clients directing them to change their payment accounts to accounts in the control of the offenders. As a result payments by the clients in excess of $700,000 were miss-directed into the accounts nominated by the offenders. As a direct result of prompt reporting by the victim a significant portion of the funds were recovered with an interstate offender being located and currently facing charges relating to dealing in the proceeds of crime.

Case Study:

A Northern Territory Business received an email that appeared to be from an employee requesting their salary be directed to a new account as they had changed their banking details. The offenders are believed to have obtained the employee’s details and finance area email address from information supplied on the victim businesses website public facing contact page. As a result salary payments for the victim were re-directed to accounts in the control of the offenders, these funds were not able to be recovered.