Phishing scam in December 2018 costs Edmonton Economic Development Corporation $375,000

Edmonton Economic Development Corporation (EEDC), an agency under the Edmonton City of Canada, became a victim of phishing scam costing them $375,000.

Terry Curtis, VP of corporate relations in EEDC, said that they were notified about irregularities in a transaction by the bank in December 2018. He further said that in the early part of January 2019, they were able to confirm that fraudulent activity has happened and thus they started an investigation.

Curtis added that right now he can't provide more information on this phishing scheme as the investigation is still ongoing. The company said in its official press release that they are currently working with the law enforcement as well as legal authorities to try recover the stolen money. Moreover, the organization is trying to have better safety measures in place in order to prevent more losses. This also includes hiring an expert of fraud prevention and cyber-security to look at the systems of EEDC and help in investigation, Terry Curtis said in a news release.

Curtis said on January 30, 2019, interview that "it is a standard phishing scheme that was employed to target us. A third party was pretending to be one of our clients to get the funds".

Being a company that is controlled by the Edmonton city government, the Edmonton city mayor has been briefed about updates regarding investigation of this incident by the auditor of the city. Don Iveson, Edmonton Mayor, said on January 30, 2019, that he is aware about this scam and the auditor of the city could be tasked of reviewing the incident. Iveson said "I understand EEDC's own auditor and audit committee of its board are looking at this. I don't think they'll have an issue at all with having the city's internal auditor look at this as well, I think more eyes on something like this will be better".

Curtis said once they have completed their own internal audit along with the audit that was done by a third-party every year, they are satisfied that this has been only instance of the occurring. Curtis concluded by saying that they are in touch with the vendors and suppliers for verifying that the payments made to them were received.

» SPAMfighter News - 2/15/2019