In the words of Alan Greenspan, former Chair of the Federal Reserve of the United States,
“Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff”
Although it’s a bit of a grim message, all organisations are vulnerable to fraud – big or small, public or private – and there are many real life examples to support this statement.
What does Fraud look like?
The risk of fraud is typically perpetrated in a number of ways:
- There is internal fraud - where the event occurs as a result of something a worker within you organisation has done.
- There is external fraud - where the event comes about through the actions of a person outside of your organisation.
- Then there is events of collusion or corruption, and they may come about from persons both inside and external to your organisation working together.
As humans, we keep coming up with different ways to defraud businesses and governments, and our most recent email on Social Engineering demonstrated this. How fraud occurs continues to evolve, so we need to be alert, and stay well read and informed on this topic.
But it is not just “bad actors” in overseas locations that are intruding on our businesses. Only last week, the Australia Federal Police arrested a defence employee, their family member and a contractor, who were all working in collusion to defraud the Dept of Defence – all 3 have been charged with fraud and corruption over an alleged $71 million Defence contract scheme.
Want more information and the actions you should take?
November 16 – 22 is International Fraud Awareness Week and in Australia, the Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Centre provide resources and support to our businesses to identify and manage the risk of fraud events. The theme for 2025 is “Fraud is a team effort – don’t sit on the sidelines”. You can access their webpage to get resources to support your organisation.
You can also click on the link below to download our Fraud Risk Scorecard – review this Scorecard to implement the actions listed to help mitigate this risk in your organisation.
https://the-mindful-risk-group.kit.com/b8bc168c3f
Have a great week,
Bron