Each year, we remind our business online banking customers about an important fraud threat known as Corporate Account Takeover. This form of cybercrime targets businesses of all sizes and can lead to serious financial losses.

With this type of fraud, thieves may:

• Gain access to a business' finances to make unauthorized transactions, including transferring funds from the company,
• Create and add new fake employees to payroll, changing contact information, gathering information on the account's history to commit other crimes.
• Steal sensitive customer information that may not be recoverable.

With Account Takeover, employees often serve as entry points into the company's networks. They do this by unknowingly providing their access credentials through phishing sites or by downloading malware onto the system after clicking on malicious links or opening infected attachments. Fraudsters also target senior executives in business email compromise scams in order to gain access to the executive's legitimate email account, impersonate them, and direct employees to conduct wire transfers or payment transactions on the executive’s behalf.

It’s critical that you review the enclosed Business Incident Response Plan Checklist for Account Takeover. We recommend that you read and share it with all users of Business Online Banking and Remote Deposit within your company. If this type of fraud does occur, contact the bank immediately and follow the business response plan checklist that outlines the steps you should follow.

We strongly recommend that your company considers obtaining cyber insurance. Cyber insurance protects businesses against financial losses caused by incidents like data breaches and theft, system hacking, ransomware extortion payments and more. If your business stores sensitive information online or on a computer, you should carry at least some cyber insurance coverage. The Federal Trade Commission created this helpful document which outlines the benefits of cyber insurance, and what to look for when purchasing this type of insurance for your business.

If you have any questions regarding this information or would like to discuss any security controls offered by the Bank, please contact our Treasury Management Department at 781.682.3240 or email us at [email protected].