3 Ways Document Management Prevents Phishing Scams

In one fell swoop, scammers phished more than $100 million from Facebook and Google. And, let’s be honest, if it can happen to Facebook and Google, it can happen to anyone. No matter how careful you are, how diligent you are about changing your passwords regularly, covering up your webcam and not opening those suspicious-looking emails, phishing and fraud can still happen to you.

In the case of the Facebook/Google phishing scam, the offender pretended to be Taiwanese manufacturing company Quanta Computer and generated fake invoices to companies, including Facebook and Google, and had those companies wire money to phony bank accounts overseas in Latvia and Cyprus. They also had the companies sign fake contracts and documents to support the wire transfers.

With today’s technological advancements, any person and any company can become the victim of a phishing scam. Scammers have the skills and abilities to make emails look incredibly legitimate, so even the most attentive companies can find themselves in the throes of a phishing scam.

Document management/paperless automation doesn’t just help your company be more efficient, it also helps your company create a defense against fraud. Here’s how:

• Reduced back-and-forth email: Automated solutions are set up based on your company’s unique business rules and send documents to the proper approver based on those rules. This means that information doesn’t need to be emailed back-and-forth from person to person at the risk of fraud, as email is not always secure. Information is sent to a queue within the document management solution and an email is sent to the appropriate approver to let them know that the secure queue has documents that need their attention.
• Improved compliance: Certain business documents and information are required to be kept on-file for a set amount of time, according to document retention regulations. Rather than keeping those documents in a filing cabinet or box in the storage room in the basement, a document management solution securely stores files digitally, which means less room for error and more room for compliance. And just more room in general!
• Access permissions: Approval and access isn’t a free-for-all anymore with document management/paperless automation. Administrators have the ability to set up system permissions so only authorized employees have access to certain types of information and can only take certain action on that information. This prevents sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands, which reduces the risk of fraud and scams.

Keep phishing out of your organization by taking precautions is essential, especially as technology continues to advance and phishing scams become more legitimate-looking. Document management/AP automation could be the key to preventing fraud within your company.