Cyber fraud and scams against Chinese companies have increased after the implementation of new technologies and payment methods being the cryptocurrencies of great appeal to cybercriminals.
They assure that cybercrimes proliferated in the Asian country during the year 2017. The firm reported that 88% of companies in China and Hong Kong were targets of cybercrime in the past year, this percentage being higher than the global average, which was positioned at 8%.
Paul Jackson, head of cyber security and research in Asia, said that just as these kinds of technologies bring benefits for their users, they also involve many risks of fraud and scams.
Jackson stressed that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have become targets for hackers and cyber scammers, due to the large sums of money that are invested in them. Recall that bitcoin reached the price of $ 20,000 per unit last December and various altcoins also reached record highs in 2017.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they felt vulnerable to phishing attacks based on emails, while 52% said they were afraid of leaking information and 51% said they were afraid of fraud with transfers. Jackson said that these cyber crimes will remain in force in 2018 and that his clients have been concerned about this because of everything that happened.
Violet Ho, head of operations in Kroll's Greater China, explains that one of the most common attacks is often pre-empted when an attacker gains access to a company's email system and poses as a top executive and urges employees to transfer money to your bank accounts.
Many Chinese companies do not check their employees' records and do not make sure that they will behave well after being hired. Hiring the right people is extremely important to prevent instances of fraud.
Many of these transactions are made in Hong Kong as this city is an international financial center. It should be noted that Hong Kong was one of the locations most affected by the waves of ransomware virus during the past year, campaigns that managed to affect hundreds of thousands of companies forcing them to recover their information only with cryptocurrencies
HO RECOMMENDS TO PREVENT EMPLOYEES FROM COMMITTING FRAUDS:
- First, it proposes to install an internal whistleblower program in the company because, according to Kroll's experience, about 50% of attempts to commit fraud are frustrated by those who warn about it.
- Second, the performance of employees based on achievable goals is a factor that reinforces ethical behavior and combats corruption. Ho specifies that Kroll has detected in other companies sellers that divert transactions to fraudulent accounts or often offer products and services at a lower price to companies in which it owns or is related, which they then resell.
- Thirdly, he also clarified that companies should investigate very well the lives of their employees, especially senior executives and those who are located in key positions in that company.
- Fourth, it establishes that companies should not tolerate fraud at all and make sound decisions to prevent them from happening, regardless of the time or money spent, so they must assume the consequences of the least crime committed.
- And finally, with respect to tolerance of fraud, it ensures that companies must stipulate investigation methods and procedures to end the employment relationship with the employee who commits fraud. This clarification makes it clear that the legal provisions for dismissing an employee in China are particularly difficult, so it must be proved irrefutably that the worker in question is committing damages against the company.