Majority of Fraud Cases in 2017 Had Insider Involvement – e-Crime

Statistics has revealed that 69 per cent of fraud cases recorded in 2017 in Ghana, had insider involvement, Mr Alex Oppong, the Principal Consultant, e-Crime Bureau, has stated.

He said 31 per cent of fraud cases within the 2017 period were conducted by external perpetrators which did not include any direct insider involvement.

He explained that the modus operandi of these external perpetrators included recruitment of insiders and engaging them to connect devices knowingly or unknowingly to their network where they gain access remotely to the systems.

He said after gaining access, they manipulate databases, records or steal information, which they used for their fraudulent activities.

Mr Oppong disclosed this at the maiden edition of the Integrity Management Forum in Accra.

The forum, which was organised by e-Crime Bureau, seeks to equip participants to evaluate existing processes of employee recruitment and engagement with third-party service providers.

Mr Oppong noted that some employees had been found to upload trade secrets and proprietary information by exploiting cloud services such as drop box, google drive and one drive, which they use to their own benefit.

He said a culture of integrity created a highly respected work environment; declaring that “it impacts the quality of corporate administration and it provides a foundation for worthy long-term financial performance.

“This has necessitated the need to conduct Background Checks, Mystery Shopping and Polygraph Testing during the on-boarding process as well as investigations issues of employees and perpetrators,” Mr Oppong added.

He said to this end, the main objective of the forum was to abreast participants with specific strategies to adopt for effective integrity management of their human resource processes, which included regular background checks on employees, mystery shopping and the application of the polygraph testing technology for investigations.

Source: GNA