Photo credit; Eliot Phillips on Flickr
Two New Zealand businesses lost “significant sums of money” after they placed orders with Chinese companies that fell victim to internet hackers, police in New Zealand said recently.
Both companies had good relationships with their Chinese suppliers for many years, paying deposits into international bank accounts for goods which they then  imported into New Zealand.
In both cases, the e-mail accounts of the Chinese suppliers had been hacked, resulting in the Kiwi companies inadvertently rerouting payments to the hackers.
“The New Zealand businesses received an e-mail asking them to transfer their usual deposit into a different bank account. When the businesses replied about why they have been asked to deposit money into an account that differs from the usual one, the companies were confirmed that the directions are correct,” the police said.
“The confirmation e-mail was a fraudulent message that has been sent by hackers who accessed the Chinese e-mail account,” said the police.
The crime had come to light after several weeks when the Chinese suppliers contacted the New Zealand importers to inquire why they had failed to pay their deposits.
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Tags: China, cybercrime, hacking
