Hello, this is CoBank’s Fraud Wise, helping you avoid becoming a victim of fraud.
In previous episodes, we’ve talked about the types of fraud risks you may face, how you can prevent them, and how you can mitigate the financial and business repercussions in general terms.
Today we’ll be talking about what to do immediately following a fraud incident, and in the days that follow.
If you discover that you’ve become a victim of a fraud, the first thing you should do is report the fraud to your bank, which will work with you to immediately protect the account from experiencing more fraudulent items posting. Secondly, contact your local authorities and/or the FBI. It’s likely that you’re not the only victim, and involving the authorities, and sharing your experience, may help them catch the criminal.
Next, run a comprehensive virus scan on all your computers and servers to identify and clean up everywhere that’s been compromised. This means every employee’s computer, and if they’ve used their personal computers for any work, require them to run a virus scan at home as well.
Also conduct a root cause analysis, or hire an IT vendor to do it, to find out how and when the fraud was enacted. In order to protect against a similar fraud event in the future, you need to know how it happened the first time.
Then, update your processes and procedures to help make sure the same type of fraud doesn’t happen again in the future. This can mean additional employee education and training, so you’ll need to develop appropriate resources. The Fraud and Security center on CoBank.com is a great place to start.
And finally, start reconciling all account activity on a daily basis to quickly identify any further fraud stemming from the original breach. If you find any, follow these same steps, beginning with reporting the fraud to the bank and then the authorities.
This has been CoBank Fraud Wise, helping you protect against fraud.