Archives for November 2016

This afternoon they tried to Spear me.

A phone call from an Australian number. A polite and articulate young man named Jared on the line, from Market Solutions.

I had – supposedly – participated in an online survey earlier this year, and did I want to receive “a one – off email with some investment opportunities” that I’d said I’d be interested in?

This is not the old Nigerian Prince scam, or the Ukranian girlfriend, the Google lottery draw or a long lost, deceased, possible relative with 12 Million US in the bank that can be ours, or partly ours.

It’s far more sophisticated.

This is a very polite and professional sounding Aussie with Investment Opportunities that I might actually be interested in, even if I can’t remember the exact survey I supposedly filled in. The sounds of a busy office in the background.

The point of the phone call is to make you expect the email, and to open the attachment because you know it’s coming.

And they know about you. They can tune their “sales pitch” to your interests and business profile – after all, they’ve got access to LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter, your Company Website, and all the other places you feature.

If you have a receptionist, colleague or staff member they can call they may ask how best to contact you, get your email address, and ask that person to let you know an email is coming your way.

Once the firewall is circumnavigated, you effectively do their work for them, by opening an innocuous looking pdf or word attachment and downloading Ransomware or other Malware onto your own system – and through the Cloud or your company network this can spread to every device, locking down or looking into all your valuable systems and data.

Then comes the demand for payment to unlock it, which will increase in cost the longer you delay.

If you need the data, can’t recover it  and don’t have Insurance cover, what else can you do?

Except, like burglary, if you’ve been hit once, you’re far more likely to be attacked again – because the Cyber Criminals will sell your details – as good payers – to others of their ilk. Like a malicious referral programme.

If it’s not ransomware they are distributing, then they are working as the distributors of private information your company holds about clients, employees and your own accounts, invoices and suppliers.

Once they are in, they will work at full speed to get the information to the highest bidder before the breach is discovered.

The Insurance Industry is responding the these new threats by creating a Cyber Crime policy that typically gives access to a range of experts who can unlock data, remove malware, recover and rewrite records and pay for Privacy Act breaches and other costs associated with an attack.

Make sure that you discuss this with your broker; it might be the most valuable talk you can have all year.

Footnote:

I Say “No – Thank You.” He rings off. I call the number back and get a disconnected message. This time, I swim clear. But they’re getting cleverer.

When a big business goes down, media focuses on shop closures, job losses and customer vouchers.

But the hidden losers are a lot of smaller businesses that supply goods and services to larger corporates.

When it comes to payouts from receiverships, IRD and big Creditors take their cuts first – and Receivers always earn their fees.

That can leave Small Creditors looking at a recovery of a few Cents in the Dollar, after a protracted period.

Trade Credit Insurance can change that. Creditor collapses, Bad Debts, both here and abroad, non payment on invoice terms – all these can be covered.

Trade Credit Insurance also gives lenders more confidence in your business, making them more willing to lend, or impose less rigorous conditions and security requirements on the loan terms.

To see how Trade Credit insurance can free your business, give you the confidence to expand into new markets and protect your balance sheet, contact us here – we will send an expert to talk to you.

The Herald reports:

The receivers for struggling children’s clothing chain Pumpkin Patch are continuing to look for a buyer for the business after announcing a bunch of store shutdowns and job cuts last week.

The New Zealand-headquartered children’s clothing specialist was placed into voluntary administration on October 26, with major creditor ANZ appointing KordaMentha as receivers.

Last week, the receivers announced that 27 of the retailer’s Australian stores will be closed, laying off up to 145 staff.

They had earlier announced seven store closures in New Zealand, which would also result in job losses there.

The group is believed to owe between $45-50 million to ANZ alone, with total creditors owed about $80 million.

The company posted an 11 per cent decline in FY16 sales at $212.4 million, with after-tax loss of $9.1 million.

On Monday, the administrators told the creditors’ meeting in Sydney the company’s directors were yet to submit a statement of affairs outlining the current financial situation of the business.

A second creditors’ meeting will be held after November 16, depending on the progress made in the sale process, Mr Hayes said.

The full story is here

A woman who defrauded Auckland Airport of $1.8 million has been sent to prison for three years and two months.

As is quite common in these cases, the lady had worked for her employer for a long time – 18 years – and a stressful life situation caused her to start the fraud in 2012.

People in businesses who hold positions of trust, and have financial duties can find it easy to take money fraudulently and hide the losses over a long time frame – often 2 – 3 years.

By putting bank account details into invoices after they’d been approved, duplicating accounts and diverting refund payments into their own accounts they can rack up significant sums.

In small businesses, losses on any scale are hard to counter.

Fidelity Insurance, often called Crime insurance, can prove to be the salvation for business owners who find they’ve suffered in this way.

If you want to know more about Business Insurance that can protect you from a wide range of losses, including fraud,Contact me today

The Herald reports

Teremoana Kimiangatau, 54, was sentenced today at the Manukau District Court after earlier pleading guilty on all three charges of “obtaining by deception”, laid by the Serious Fraud Office [SFO].

The former airport accounts clerk, of 18 years, had transferred funds from the company’s bank account to her own account.

She did this by changing the client bank account numbers to her own within the airport’s accounting system.

After the offending was uncovered, Kimiangatau repaid all of the money except for a shortfall of about $200,000.

Today, Crown prosecutor Gareth Kayes submitted a starting point of six to seven years imprisonment was appropriate with discounts given for the mitigating factors of the voluntary repayment, along with her previous good character and evident remorse.

However, it was offending that was premeditated, repetitive over three and a half years, involved an abuse of trust and caused significant loss to Auckland Airport.

Kimiangatau’s lawyer, Peter Winter, said after a long period with the company, the offending began when her family suffered financial blows in 2012.

Her husband, an aircraft engineer tradesman, had his job advertised five times and was forced to reapply for it four times.

This caused the family to suffer depression and stress.

“Inexcusably, she started taking money from the company,” Winter told the court.

Kimiangatau saw how easy the company recovered from losses due to “double-counting” which gave her confidence in her offending, Winter said.

According to the summary of facts, read to the court by Judge John Bergseng, Kimiangatau, who was responsible for arranging payment to Auckland Airport suppliers, on 34 occasions used her specialized knowledge to access the system.

She did this by putting her bank account details into invoices after they’d been approved, duplicating accounts and diverting refund payments into her own account.

This took place over more than three years from May 9 2012 to September 26, 2013 and she used the a home, cars, holidays, repaying debts and other life expenses.

Judge Bergseng said Kimiangatau’s fraud involved a “relatively high degree of sophistication” and the motivated was “lifestyle-related”.

“You were wanting to be in a position whereby you were back in your own home and your were able to use the money to fund your own lifestyle.”

SFO director Julie Read said this morning:

“After many years of honest employment, Mrs Kimiangatau let both herself and her employer down by committing this crime. In a position to see weaknesses in the system, she chose to take advantage of them rather than to see that they were remedied. There is no excuse for that. All employees have a responsibility to ensure that processes are thorough and adhered to.”

The full NZ Herald story can be seen here