Protect Your Business against the Gift Card Scam

The gift card may be the perfect (if impersonal) gift; however, these convenient little plastic rectangles may not be so perfect after all. In 2018, they’ve been a vital component to a business email compromise scam that has been popular recently.

Why Gift Cards, And Why Businesses
Let us look at the situation. You spend most of your time with your team. You’ve more than likely developed some kind of familiarity with them, or at the very least have been roped into an office gift exchange. If you aren’t familiar with all of your coworkers or employees, you may have a tough time selecting the best gift for them.

Acknowledging this, it makes sense to gift them something that they can pick out for themselves, like a gift card. This probably explains why gift cards are such a popular option.

Alas, this also practically hands scammers the opportunity to make a lot of money.

The Scam 
Utilizing spoofed emails and social engineering tactics, a hacker can scam a company’s users by posing as an authority figure, like the president or the CEO. Under this deceit, the scammer can instruct the user to purchase gift cards for the staff and to pass along the redemption codes to the scammer.

Since these instructions seemingly come from an authority figure, the employee complies, not realizing that they are sending company funds to a cybercriminal in an effectively untraceable form of currency.

How to Avoid This Scam
Awareness is critical to protecting your organization's interests, resources, and funds, and this awareness needs to be on all levels of your business. Every member needs to be educated on how to spot these scams, and how to confirm them.

This confirmation is another vital component to your business security. If your employees don’t develop the habit of confirming requests like this via a secondary line of communication, the business is left vulnerable to this scam and similar ones. Sure, fielding confirmation requests from your employees may get irritating fast, but it will almost certainly be preferable when compared to being scammed.

When all is said and done, scammers are going to keep trying to take advantage of you, your employees, and your organization. Macro Systems can help to protect you. Give us a call at 703-359-9211 today.