If you thought only a vulnerable common man can fall prey to phishing, think again. Even a corporation, equipped with sufficient manpower and state of the art technology to carry out proper checks and balances, can be a victim of online deception.
Looks like the fraudsters are finding new ways to practice their trade. How else can one explain the International Cricket Council (ICC) being duped of almost $ 2.5 million online?
That the ICC has been cheated not just once, but four times in recent times is even more galling. The authorities at the Dubai office of cricket's world governing body did not have a clue that they were being made victims of an online fraud till Thursday.
The ICC officials maintain silence on the matter citing an ongoing investigation, but TOI can confirm that payments have been made to a party based in the US, which claimed to be a vendor of the ICC. The fraudsters have used an email id that apparently was familiar to the ICC.
The scam has taken ICC members by surprise. The amount, close to $ 2.5 million is a huge amount for Associate nations affiliated to the ICC, if not for a full member, and an official of an Associate nation expressed dismay.
"I cannot imagine it has happened in the ICC," the member from Europe said. His board would get between $ 500,000 to $ 100,000 grant annually, something given to the Associate Boards with ODI status.
The matter is being investigated internally and externally with ICC's finance department coming under sharp focus as to how its staff was so clueless as to have not done the due diligence and released payments four times.
