“High Roller” – Fund Transfer Fraud

The white paper “Dissecting Operation High Roller” by Dave Marcus could easily provide the basis of a blockbuster screenplay in the next high tech crime drama involving fund transfer fraud.  “High Roller” refers to the criminals focus on bank accounts with high balances.  It shows how data attack technologies have evolved to complete automation and how the computer fraud targets have expanded from just wealthy people accounts to wealthy business accounts.  The speed and sophistication of the attacks are incredible as is their ability to defeat two factor authentications.

While the large financial institutions may be accustom to attacks, the “automation” feature of these attacks should be of considerable note to the smaller credit unions and banks that may have previously felt well hidden in the weeds.  Automation allows these very sophisticated criminals to go everywhere bringing smaller institutions out into the open.  This risk is compounded for smaller institutions that are slow to upgrade system protection infrastructure and/or upgrade missing or outdated insurance coverage.

Directors can protect their personal liability and their Directors and Officers Liability policies by making sure that management is continually reviewing their data protection strategy and updating their Crime and Cyber Liability Insurance policies.  Hopefully this will keep everyone involved out of the movies!

Gordon Collins is with Mitchell Sandham Inc, a (truly) independent company providing commercial, private client and financial services insurance.  His focus is on Commercial, Cyber & Executive Liability and he be contacted at gcollins@mitchellsandham.com or (416) 862-1750.