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anne.graham's avatar
anne.graham
Icon for Advisely Index Top 10 rankAdvisely Index Top 10
9 months ago

What’s your craziest cybersecurity story?


In my latest blog, I shared a couple of stories from clients who had been compromised and were asking for everything from caravans to automatic dog feeders from China. 

The extraordinary lengths hackers go to obtain information can range from clever to just plain odd. So I want to know – what’s your craziest cybersecurity story?

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  • rainier.reyes's avatar
    rainier.reyes
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    9 months ago

    First off, loved the story anne.graham ! Had a little chuckle when reading it on the train because the requests were so absurd. Highly recommend everyone in the community give it a read. 

    I've not had hackers ask me to invest in automatic dog feeders (surprisingly) but I do recall one crazy situation of cyber impersonation. It was my first day in a previous job of mine and I'd received an email from none other than the 'CEO' saying that they'd like to speak to me but was caught up in a 'conference call'. The faux-CEO then asked to reply to the email with my WhatsApp number so that we could chat there. 

    Safe to say I didn't fall for it because:

    1. I had done cybersecurity training prior and knew what phishing emails were and how to identify them; and
    2. I could spot the CEO in the kitchen sleepily slumped over the coffee machine from across the office and thought it highly unlikely that they were caught up in a conference call nor was in the mood to chat!!

    Can't wait to hear more stories from the community - and if you haven't already go register for our webinar on Thursday the 29th February. We'll be looking at even more cyber stories and what you can do to make sure your business stays cyber safe.

  • jenny.brown's avatar
    jenny.brown
    Icon for Advisely Board rankAdvisely Board
    9 months ago

    Our most crazy story is a property settlement we were about to do for over $1mil on a property within a SMSF. One of our advisers was corresponding with the client and conveyancer regarding paying the final settlement amount.
    All of a sudden he noticed that the bank details had changed, after he had done the verbal check and authority a couple of days earlier.
    Checked with the client and the conveyancer and it came out the clients emails had been compromised and if we hadn't done the 2nd lot of checking the settlement funds would have been paid to the hackers account.
    Let's say the adviser lost sleep thinking about what could have happened if he hadn't picked it up.
    The client is very grateful we have a secure checking system in place.
    Unfortunately, we've had way too many incidences that are similar to this and it's happening far too often.

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