Cybersecurity experts are warning companies that Internet fraud is on the rise in times of crisis, and firms are more vulnerable since employees work from home. In the US, security experts say the number of internet frauds will be higher than after the 2008 crisis.

The restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic have challenged businesses to do business and sent millions of employees working remotely from home.

Not all companies have been prepared to run their business remotely, so the vast majority have focused on just making things work, without taking into account the cybersecurity of their processes. Cybersecurity specialists say Romanian businesses are very vulnerable and are at risk of being defrauded.

„In Romania, working from home has not been a widespread option among non-IT companies. The main task of the internal IT departments was to make these networks work, the security of these ad-hoc VPNs being left on the back burner. These networks need to be reconfigured for a high level of security"said Gabriel Zgunea, CEO Corporate Intelligence Agency.

Specialist: 501TPTP3T of companies claim to have been defrauded

The Romanian business environment does not have a highly developed culture of prevention, specialists say, so many businesses do not make risk plans or process security strategies.

"Over 501TPTP3T of companies in Romania claim to have been defrauded in the last year. But there are many companies that have not reported because they have not yet discovered they have been defrauded.

Self-sufficiency of management, coupled with reporting the costs of prevention as an unnecessary expense, as is often the case, creates monsters. And so we get to the point where fraud plus the costs of investigation far exceed the costs of preventative actions," said Dan Rusu, cybersecurity specialist and senior partner Corporate Intelligence Agency.

Global cybersecurity experts say the COVID-19 crisis will generate more fraud than the 2008 economic crisis.

"Economic logic tells us that fraud thrives when the economy is working, grows in times of crisis and peaks when panic sets in. The growing number of poorly secured networks are consistent sources of information and potential fraud on internet for hackers. I could even say that they are a goldmine, for present and future attacks or just for selling the data they have obtained", said Gabriel Zgunea.

Insider tips

Here are some expert tips for securing your processes:

– Rate very strictly the composition and performance of internal control, security and anti-fraud departments;

– Analyze out-of-the-box internal company processes and procedures from a security point of view;

– Aloca additional resources for know your client/ know your customer activities;

– Use specialized competitive and market intelligence services in order to develop strategies.

International statistics show that in times of crisis, small companies can be defrauded by their own employees.

„A careful pre-employment screening of candidates through checks in publicly accessible databases such as the portal of the courts of justice (portal.just.ro) or the trade register (recom.ro).

For a proper risk management, whether the company is small or large, the transposition of the saying trust is good, check is better in the activity, it will considerably decrease the risk of fraud", concluded Dan Rusu, cybersecurity specialist and senior partner Corporate Intelligence Agency.