Renowned Firms Lose £1m in Cyber-Attacks

Large Jersey companies and businesses​ have been made targets of a cyber-attack, which seems to have been directed by organized cyber-criminals. They seem to have monitored the firms' emails for months on end and to have tried to replicate the lingo and idioms of staffers in these work places, thus giving it the name, "impersonation attacks".

The firms reported receiving false invoices as well as payment requests that were nearly identical to real ones, excluding the fact that the amounts in the fake ones exceeded the usual invoices.  The usage of language similar to that of the staff, excessively increased the 'credibility' of these forged documents.

One firm has in fact reported a payment of $800,000 on receiving fake documents of a property deal with the bank. This, in inclusion with all the other attacks, has led the Director at cyber-security firm Logicallis, Ricky Magalheas, to take an initiative to make people aware about cyber security. He also told the media teams of these firms to be "extra vigilant", as he suspected that a large number of these fraud emails had been sent to companies all around Jersey.