07/29/2024
I recently sold my house, and the proceeds were to be wired to my account. DO YOU KNOW HOW TERRIFYING THIS IS for a cybersecurity professional? Given what I know about the state of things, I didn’t trust ANYONE. I called the lawyer handling the transfer and told them NOT to trust any email, including mine, until I called and verified the wiring instructions over the phone. This may seem a little crazy, but it’s not.
Here’s why.
First, a few years ago, a lawyer friend of mine in Charlottesville went out of business after his email got hacked. His client was tricked into sending six figures to the wrong account. This is even more common today.
Second, there are only five things you REALLY need to care about from a cybersecurity standpoint. These five safeguards get you to about 90% secure, while the other 246 safeguards that you could implement, maybe add 8% more. So clearly, focus on these five first. The insurance industry calls these “The Big 5.” One of them is “Protected Wire Transfers,” and it’s huge.
The reason it’s huge is that it’s amazingly easy for hackers to grab large payouts by simply hacking either the sender’s or receiver’s email and changing the wiring account number to their account number. Here’s a July 23rd story about a woman who lost $400k because of this strategy:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/23/wire-fraud-in-real-estate-silicon-valley-executive-warning.html
If you are a home buyer, seller, or lawyer, do these things when dealing with a wire transfer:
➡ Call the people who will be sending the money (let’s call them Cash Cow) and verify that the phone number they have is correct and matches the caller ID you are calling from. Also, ensure the email they have is correct. If it’s not, they should put you through a hefty verification process to correct it.
➡ Tell them you understand that wire transfer fraud is a big problem, so you will send them the same information in three ways. Ask them to make sure all the info matches.
➡ Give Cash Cow your wiring info over the phone to write down and tell them you are about to send them an email from the same email they have on file, to verify this.
➡ Send them the email with the same info.
➡ Cash Cow will also require you to send a signed form with this info as well. When you send or deliver this form, this third copy of your wiring info will match the rest.
Tada! The odds that an attacker could forge the call, the email, and the signed form are exceedingly unlikely.
❗ If you are sending the money from your own account, DO NOT call a number to your bank that you got from an email. Go online and find the number to your bank and then call them to verify any wire transfer instructions you received are legit. Always, ALWAYS take the time to verify with a person-to-person phone call.
My work here is done! 😉❤👍
P.S. If you're curious, we discuss all 5 safeguards in this article:
https://1l.ink/JMMTKPK
