Policy & Procedures / Training

This Really Happened

Money travels fast, especially in investment banking. One particular bank became our client because of an unfortunate event that forced the partners to take a hard look at their policies and procedures. To make a long story short, two competing objectives were clashing; the desire to beat monthly growth estimates, and the desire to keep the big clients happy. Hackers count on human nature to steal money. An email was sent from one of the partners to his assistant, instructing her to wire $600K to a new account. She did as she was instructed. They found out the next day that the email did not come from the partner. The assistant sent all of that money to a hacker. All the hacker did was learn a few email addresses, first names, and the roles of the individuals. He/she made the email look legitimate and succeeded in pulling off an easy one. This kind of hacker might send thousands of these phishing emails every year. They know that it only takes one unsuspecting employee to make a big profit. We worked with them to help create their new policies and procedures, which every employee has signed their agreement to. This, combined with employee training, has created an effective process that keeps mistakes from happening while giving the employees an easy, dependable process to rely on.