CEO fraud is a type of phishing attack where fraudsters impersonate a company's CEO to trick employees into transferring money. Some signs of a fraudulent CEO email are: checking for small differences in email addresses, watching out for suspicious attachments that could contain malware, noticing unusual language that is out of character for the sender, and always confirming financial requests through another form of contact instead of replying to the original email.

1. HOW TO SPOT A CEO FRAUD EMAIL

2. CEO Fraud is a type of phishing attack
involving the impersonation of a
company’s CEO to trick a targeted
employee into transferring money.
Fraudsters will typically target the
company’s finance department and will
often research the CEO and the types
of purchases that are usually made,
make their act all the more convincing.

3. 1. Check Email Addresses
The display name might look authentic, but
email addresses are much harder to falsify.
With many companies purchasing their own
domain names, attackers often have to alter
the spelling slightly – in our example you can
see that the domain has an extra E in the
company name ‘Green Trust’.

4. 2. Suspicious Attachments
If an attachment is included in the
email consider whether this is unusual
for your workplace’s transfer requests –
attachments can harbour malicious
software which can disrupt your
network or log your key strokes to gain
login details.

5. 3. Unusual Language
If the attacker is posing as a member of staff
that you message frequently, it should stand
out if the language they are using is out of
character.
For example, they may use a formal address
or sign off with their full name, opposed to a
more casual message.

6. 4. Another Form of Contact
Whenever you find an email regarding finances
suspicious, always find a way to contact someone for
approval. Of course, don’t use the email address that
the message was sent from – instead try finding the
supposed sender in person or give them a call.
If the sender is busy or out of office, check with another
high-ranking employee.

7. For more topics and training material visit the Boxphish website.