Mr. Clement Osei-Amoako, Chairman of the Accra Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has urged business operators and industries to be vigilant about fraudsters during transactions on the Internet.

“Technology is playing an increasing role in fraud, not only introducing new opportunities for the fraudster but also compounding opportunities for collusion.

“There is a need to put in place measures to mitigate the risk of fraudsters in the country’s business sector,” he said:

Mr. Osei-Amoako was speaking at the 3rd executive seminar on business fraud organised by the Chamber; it was under the topic “Modern Trends In Business Fraud, Impact, Detection And Prevention”.

The seminar was aimed at addressing banking signature fraud, commercial identity cyber fraud, and insurance fraud.

Mr. Albert Antwi-Boasiako, Founder and Principal Consultant indicated that Cyber attacks are increasing and becoming more sophisticated to address, and that fraudsters use people’s e-mail accounts to hack through a Phishing attack -- which is software used to carry out fraud on the net.

He explained that some of the internal employees often also used a Key logger to obtain confidential information from their organisation.

“A fraudulent investment company was set up by a fraud syndicate and a website was set up to defraud business owners,” he said.

Mr. Antwi-Boasiako stated that most of the e-fraud crime involves staff of the affected firms.

“Cyber criminals are no longer the Sakawa or 419 operatives acting alone; they are skilled cyber thieves and hackers who share information to defeat defences and steal data,” Mr. Antwi-Boasiako said.

He advised companies and other organisations to cross-check the people they do transactions with on the Internet before engaging them in business.

The Accra Chamber of Commerce and Industry is an association of business operators, firms and industries set up to promote commercial and industrial interests in Ghana.