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Blog Posts
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Wire Fraud Happens to the Best of Us
Conduit would like to thank Rana Robillard, a recent victim of wire fraud, for sharing her experience with the crime. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of the crime (social engineering, BEC, money mules) we would like to highlight how Rana Robillard is a typical victim of wire fraud.
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Part 1 - Linedata Interview
As part of Conduit’s ongoing partnership with Linedata, our founder Ryan Castle sat down with Justin Ryan from Linedata to discuss wire fraud, its common tactics and recent trends.
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Cybercrime: Wire Fraud and Justice?
In our AI and digital age, the specter of cybercrime looms large, presenting a massive challenge that traditional law enforcement simply cannot solve. In an oldie but a goodie from the The Register, Doug Witschi, the assistant director for cybercrime at Interpol
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Socially Engineered Wire Fraud Spikes Over Thanksgiving
As the holiday season kicks into high gear, so does socially engineered wire fraud. This week, we all know the chaos is real. Our understaffed offices and overworked employees (being visited by in-laws) are trying to keep the spinning plates in the air. The bad guys know this and have been waiting to strike.
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Netdiligence Interview
Conduit founder Ryan Castle sat down with NetDiligence’s president, Mark Greisiger, to shed light on the severity and scope of wire fraud. Ryan highlighted what businesses are up against and how wire fraud bad guys are increasingly leveraging generative AI and advancements in payment technology to execute their crimes.
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Unless you use Conduit, Wait to Wire Funds Until July 10th
Don’t be a cliché and fall victim to wire fraud over the 4th of July holiday. We’ve unfortunately had to have those difficult conversations before, letting firms know their experience is right out of central casting when it comes to wire fraud.
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The Friday before a long holiday weekend
The weather looks great here in Chicago and I have a round of golf lined up for Friday. This week is a time when people’s minds are drifting towards relaxation, social gatherings, and travel plans. The start of summer brings with it a sense of excitement and anticipation, and it also presents the perfect opportunity for wire fraud bad guys to strike. With offices understaffed and employees preoccupied, our guards are down, making us vulnerable to attack.
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Have you Noticed More Phishing Attacks than Usual?
There is an old saying attributed to Winston Churchill….“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” In 2023 wire fraud bad guys and cyber criminals have spun this slightly to “Never let a banking crisis go to waste.”
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SVB and Wire Fraud Risk
There is an old saying attributed to Winston Churchill….“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” In 2023 wire fraud bad guys and cyber criminals have spun this slightly to “Never let a Attention all business owners, funds, employees, and individuals involved in the ongoing frenzy surrounding Silicon Valley Bank. We want to bring to your attention the significant security risks that exist in this frenzied environment, particularly when it comes to wire fraud.
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Finance Teams Who Stop Wire Fraud Should Get a Medal (or a trophy)!
When companies work on cyber security, they invest time and money to stop breaches, ransomware and malware. When it comes to wire fraud, the fastest growing crime, they do not. With wire fraud, the bad guys are looking to hack humans, not machines, so the typical response is to just have the humans “handle it.”
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The Accountants vs Skynet
Wire fraud is a serious problem that has grown in recent years as technology has advanced. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize that the most effective way for criminals to steal funds is not by hacking computers, but by hacking humans through a process called social engineering.
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ACH vs Wire Transfers
At Conduit, we know there are some elements that make Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers safer at the margins when compared to wires, because they are slower
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Even Captain Sully used one
One of the most well-known examples of how checklists can save lives comes with Captain Sullenberger. Even after a flock of birds took out both of his plane engines
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Understand Your Insurance Coverage
A recent ruling in a Minnesota District Court distinguished between social engineering and computer fraud. Most important for your business: understand your coverage and the pitfalls.
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We asked DALL-E-2 to show a Wire Fraud Victim
If you have heard of or seen some of its work already, DALL-E-2 is an AI artist that creates original art in seconds from a descriptive sentence. After DALL-E-2’s
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A Subtle Change in Policy Can Stop Wire Fraud
The best strategy to prevent wire fraud is an out of band communication
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The Fourth of July: Scammers Hard at Work During your Vacation
Given a low likelihood of recovery, wire fraud is severely underreported. Since nearly all perpetrators are located outside of the US
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Money Mules: How Criminals Move Money Overseas
Most people are familiar with the “Nigerian Prince” scams of the 1990’s. What many don’t realize is that these “419” scams
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Evolution of Bank Heists
The heist movie has been a staple of the action genre ever since The Great Train Robbery debuted back in 1903.
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Trends: Ransomware vs. BEC
On a risk/reward basis, we believe that wire fraud is most likely to be the focus for cyber criminals in the near term.
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$130 Million Lost in Wire Fraud
One of our favorite financial authors, Matt Levine, wrote an article about a large wire fraud. The story he tells highlights the need for workflow automation, accountability, and transparency to supplement existing wire processes. At conduit we know the crime of wire fraud happens to the most sophisticated actors in the business who have thorough procedures in place.
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Wire Fraud New Year’s Resolutions
Wire fraud is a huge problem for American businesses, with almost $2 Billion reported stolen in 2020 and accounting for a third of all cyber insurance claims. Do you have a written policy and have you educated your team on the mechanics of the crime?
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What is the FBI Telling us about Wire Fraud?
In brief, it’s the largest internet crime around.
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Plausible Deniability And Who Absorbs A Wire Fraud Loss?
When working on recovering fraudulent wire transfers, there are always common themes across all the crimes. The two I’d like to highlight here are:
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Seinfeld, the Beach, and Stopping Wire Fraud Edit
I love Seinfeld’s stand-up. I’m a fan of the show, have seen him live and often go down YouTube rabbit holes watching old clips.
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4 Reasons Wire Fraud Criminals are Thankful
Thanksgiving is here! Tis the season for “Out of Office” replies, calls going to voicemail, airports and highways crowded with travelers….and wire fraud. It’s the first Thanksgiving since 2019 without major travel restrictions and is anticipated to be one of the busiest ever with travel exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Everyone is thankful to see our family and friends again, detach from work, and enjoy time with our loved ones.
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Ransomware Vs Wire Fraud
The news provides a daily reminder of the prevalence of cybercrime. We are told businesses are under constant attack from a spectrum of bad guys, ranging from lone individuals to criminal syndicates and state sponsored organizations, and in our experiences, we completely agree.
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How To Recover A Wire Transfer
Being the victim of wire fraud is extremely traumatic. You will immediately worry about if you will ever see the money again, if any of your other transfers are at risk, and whether or not your systems are compromised. These feelings of worry will be quickly followed by anger and disbelief around your attempts to recover your assets. Navigating this event is stressful and complicated. Coordinating between banking, insurance, and law enforcement is both difficult and frustrating. We’ve condensed our best practices so you can move quickly and confidently to try and recover your wire transfer.
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Wire Fraud Bad Guys, not Hackers, Stole $2.3 Million from Wisconsin Republicans in an Epic Wire Fraud Case
As reported by the AP “Wisconsin Republican Party says hackers stole $2.3m” two weeks before the 2020 election.