Pay your bills on the internet in complete safety, avoiding falling into online fraud. Useful tips to avoid computer scams connected with invoices are also available on the CERTFin website - the public-private cooperative initiative aimed at increasing the cyber risk management capacity of banking and financial operators directed by ABI and by the Bank of Italy. Italy, which share the Presidency, and operated by the Abi Lab Consortium
These are tricks and good practices, provided with a simple and direct language to strengthen security, thus reducing the factors of vulnerability.
Here are the "useful tips".
As a company:
- Make sure that employees are aware and informed about fraud related to invoices and how to avoid them.
- Instruct staff responsible for paying invoices to always check for any irregularities.
- Implements a procedure to verify the legitimacy of payment requests.
- Review the information posted on your company's website, especially contracts and suppliers. Make sure your staff limits what they share about society through their social media.
As an employee:
- Check all requests that claim to come from your creditors, especially if they ask you to change their bank details for future invoices.
- For payments above a certain threshold, set up a procedure to confirm the correct bank account (and IBAN) and recipient (for example, a meeting with the company).
- Do not use the contact details indicated on the letter / fax / email requesting the change. Instead, use those from the previous correspondence.
- When you pay an invoice, send an email to inform the recipient. Include the name of the payee's bank and the last four digits of the designated account.
- Define the Contact Points with the companies to which you make regular payments.
- Limit information about your employer that you share on social media.
- Always contact the police in case of fraud attempts, even if you have not been the victim of fraud.