FUP warns citizens and legal entities: Increasingly frequent fraud via email messages

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Federal Police Administration has received several reports from citizens and legal entities regarding so-called “CEO fraud” (Chief Executive Officer).

Attackers, using the credentials (credentials are information used in identification and authentication processes, editor's note) of responsible persons in companies, instruct employees in companies via email to make a bank transfer to the attacker's bank account abroad, the FUP announced.

These emails contain the credentials of a person higher up in the company hierarchy, and then, using the authority of the position itself, they send an email with payment instructions, instructing the employee responsible for payment to execute it, marked as urgent.

In further correspondence with the victim, the attackers also attach a “.pdf” file to the email with payment instructions, which may also contain malicious code aimed at taking control of the victim's information system.

Police officers of this Administration, from the Department for Combating Computer Crime, draw citizens' attention not to fall for this form of fraud and, if they receive an email from a person they know, in which that “known” person asks them to urgently transfer money, they must contact the actual person whose credentials appear as the sender of the email by phone or other means (other than email) and check whether they sent the said payment instruction.