RCMP intelligence analyst offers advice after Saskatoon fraud 

The City of Saskatoon announced on Thursday it had lost more than $1-million in an e-mail scam.

Now, an intelligence expert is offering advice to beef up security.

Jeffrey Thomson works with the RCMP and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Agency.

He told Gormley there are several ways companies and governments can cut down on fraud.

“You need to have policies or processes in place that authenticate payments, to start,” he said. “You could have a process in place where there’s verbal confirmation, especially if it’s a request coming in through email or some sort of messaging application.”

He explained it’s important to keep a close eye on requests to change financial information.

“Is there spelling errors in this email? Is there an urgent request? Is it something you’d typically see?” he said.

All of this caution may be necessary for more than just city governments, according to Thomson.

He said a wide variety of entities can be targeted in similar online scams.

Thomson said fraudsters tend to target existing relationships like those an organization has with a contractor or supplier.