The City of Liberty has fallen victim to a fraudulent wire transfer totaling approximately $600,000 after receiving a payment request from an email address impersonating a legitimate vendor.
According to a statement released by the City, the fraudulent payment request came from a lookalike email domain designed to closely resemble that of a vendor to whom the City owed money. The transfer was completed before the receiving bank flagged the transaction as potentially fraudulent and alerted the City’s bank.
“The City had a legitimate outstanding obligation to the vendor in the amount of the transfer. This legitimate debt contributed to the initial assessment of the validity of the payment request,” the statement said.
City officials emphasized that the incident did not involve a breach of the City’s internal computer network.
“The City’s internal network was not compromised; this isolated incident appears to have originated from an external source using a domain designed to closely resemble the vendor’s legitimate email address,” the statement said.
The Liberty Police Department is working with federal law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident. According to the City, neither the vendor nor any of the legitimate parties involved in the original transaction, including City officials and consultants, is suspected of wrongdoing.
The City has filed a claim with its insurance carrier related to the cybersecurity incident and has strengthened its vendor payment verification procedures.
“Due to the ongoing investigation, we are unable to provide additional comments or details at this time,” the City said.
Officials said the City will continue cooperating with federal law enforcement as the investigation continues.
That’s a City Manager problem.
Really? Even I know how to not fall for scams. Double check EVERYTHING! If they would have checked with the company that they owed money too instead of just sending the money they wouldn’t have fallen for this. Just pick up the phone and talk to people! It’s not that hard.🤷♀️
wow; this is the fakest report ever; no one was born yesterday; that can read this news report; it will come out later who really got the money!!!!
I agree with Deedee, definitely has some inside actors. Who besides the lien holder and the borrower knew the details of that loan?
Wow, I have no words
Who was the vendor impersonating? Not many vendors would be do that large of a sum. Who was it?
I’m glad the city is working with their insurer and has identified the source of the problem. The complexity of financial theft is increasing exponentially and hopefully the city will take a thorough review of all departments to provide the most secure transactions possible.
And now the taxpayers will have to pay. Need to fire everyone and start over.
This smells fishy. Someone had enough information about city business to pull this off. Of course two days after it happened it’s announced no one in the city was involved?
If no city data was breeched, then how would a scammer know the amount of the legitimate debt? Is it public information? If so, post a link.
No protocol in place for this amount?
I am interested Mobile, Alabama for work this week and they just announced the city got scammed for 14.7 million. MILLION.
In*