I own a financial services firm and we would never act on wiring or distribution instructions contained in an email, from a client, realtor, bank, etc. We would always pick up the phone and call our client. We usually recognize their voices. If we didn’t, we would use several forms of verifying their ID, including asking questions no cyber criminal would know, “When is your anniversary?”, “What year did we agree upon in your financial plan as a retirement date?”, “Tell me again where you said your son was doing his internship?”, “what year did we meet, and who referred you to me?”
We repeat any instructions provided to us, asking our client to carefully verify the routing numbers and banking info. They must sign a Letter of Authorization, and their signature is compared to those on file previously. This stuff is very scary, we are paranoid about it, We are seeing increased attempts at accessing Non Public Info (NPI) by cybercriminals. Frankly, we would never trust an email, no matter how secure it appears to be, no matter what form of encryption was used. I don’t care if the email comes from the Pope, or Greater Deity, we are never going to send funds without proper vetting. When it comes to distributing funds, multiple levels of verification are necessary, and picking up the phone and dialing a real person is the best form of analog verification. You can be proactive on your end too. Never just email instructions to a financial institution. Take them in personally, mail them, call (and then use email to back up those other methods), but DON’T RELY ON EMAIL to conduct sensitive financial transactions…. Slow down, never be in a hurry, and double check and double verify everything! Andy > On Apr 29, 2017, at 10:05 AM, macgroup-requ...@erdos.math.louisville.edu > wrote: > > Blind Trust In Email Could Cost You Your Home
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