Small business finance teams are prime targets for wire fraud schemes. Attackers impersonate executives, vendors, or landlords to trick you into sending money to fake accounts.
How Wire Fraud Works Against Small Businesses
Wire fraud attacks follow a pattern: an attacker compromises an email account (often the owner or CEO's account) or spoofs a company email domain to look identical to the real one. They send a message to your accounts payable person requesting an urgent wire transfer for a fictitious invoice, acquisition, or tax payment. The request feels legitimate because it comes from someone who appears to have authority to approve payments.
The attacker has often spent days or weeks studying your company: they know vendor names, employee roles, and how your approval processes work. By the time your finance team realizes the request is fraudulent, the wire has already been processed and the funds are often untraceable.
Verification Procedures That Actually Work
Implement a multi-step verification process for any wire transfer request over a certain amount. The rule is simple: never process a wire request based on email alone, no matter who it appears to come from. Always verify with a phone call using a number you independently verify - not a phone number provided in the email.
For vendor payments, maintain a master list of authorized vendors with their banking details, and never update this list based on email requests alone. If a vendor notifies you of changed banking details, call them at their main phone number to confirm before updating your records.
Multi-Factor Approval for Finance
Require that no single person can approve a large wire transfer. Set up a dual-approval workflow where amounts over a threshold need sign-off from at least two people, preferably one from finance and one from operations or management.
Train your finance team to be skeptical of urgency. Attackers create pressure with language like "this needs to process today" or "it is time-sensitive." Legitimate business payments can usually wait a day for verification. Establish clear policies: if you cannot verify a request through normal channels, it does not get paid.