Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Fintan O’Toole on Dublin and Ulysses

Hemel: The Passthrough Entity Tax Scandal


Spare a thought for Michael Coutts-Trotter, the Secretary of the NSW Premiers Department. He has been asked, in effect, to decide which of several versions of how John Barilaro was appointed “on merit” to a cushy $500,000 trade commissioner job in New York most closely approximates the truth.




At least since Melville, Americans have been enthralled by scammer narratives. Does gullibility ever get old?  




Lendlease whistleblower Tony Watson is fighting the big property developer in court as the Tax Office investigation into the $1bn tax scam grinds on behind the scenes. Michael West reports.


HMRC is marking its own homework again on the tax gap – and very oddly found it did almost exactly the same as it always does

It is HMRC tax gap day – which is the day when they admit how much tax they did not collect, in their estimation. My
Read the full article…


Russian emails appear to show ‘network’ holding $4.5bn assets linked to Putin Exclusive: Questions over palaces, vineyards and yachts run by entities that appear to be part of a cooperative


The Fisherman’s Hut: inside the luxury Russian dacha linked to Vladimir Putin


The Russian editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta has auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize medal for $103.5 million (£84 million).

Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctions Nobel medal for $103m


Fintan O’Toole on Dublin and Ulysses


Polio Virus Found in London Sewage Puts U.K. on High Alert WSJ


Revealed: Secretive British Anti-Crime Agency Spent Millions Training Colombia’s Repressive Police Declassified UK


Credit Suisse Client’s Losses Put at $607 Million in Fraud


Newcastle-based Greater Bank, otherwise known as The Greater to locals, is working with analytics and AI leader SAS to protect its 270,000-plus customers and $8 billion of assets from fraud and money laundering.


Evolving fraud prevention - replace, centralise, orchestrate

Keeping fraud management tools up to date has always been a complicated endeavour. Maya Ogranovitch Scott from Ping Identity shows us how to better adapt in this everchanging landscape.

As organizations continue to evolve their counter-fraud strategies, the amount that is estimated to be spent on fraud detection and prevention solutions by 2023 is over USD 63 billion

This number continues growing because fraudster tactics and tools are so sophisticated and rapidly evolving, requiring constant adaptation from fraud teams. 

Most companies find themselves adopting new counter-fraud technologies to enhance – not replace – previous ones. This additive approach can solve for new attack types and vectors, but it creates its own set of problems, making fraud prevention more difficult to manage.


21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “Possibly, men are more focussed on fulfilling the social role of being in a committed relationship than specific affectionate behaviors, whereas women require more visible signs of love from their partner.”



Why the ATO wants businesses to email less

Max Mason
Max MasonSenior reporter
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The Australian Taxation Office has taken down about 600 websites impersonating the tax body to defraud taxpayers in the past year and is urging businesses to use specialist software instead of emails and PDFs when invoicing, to reduce the risk of criminals hacking in and tricking employees into paying money into false accounts

ATO assistant commissioner and director of e-invoicing Mark Stockwell said hackers were constantly trying to breach the government agency for its data.

The ATO is keen to move invoicing off emails to take away a common attack by cybercriminals. Jim Rice

“It’s no question that we’re popular, not only because it is tax time, but I can’t tell you the millions of attempts [that] have tried to hit our firewall on a daily basis,” Mr Stockwell told a briefing held by the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the government’s lead agency for online security.

“It’s quite incredible how popular we are … but since they can’t get in, they try and impersonate us, setting up very sophisticated fake arrangements,” Mr Stockwell said. “It is getting more and more sophisticated every day, and just in the last 12 months we’ve taken down about 600 websites.”

The ACSC briefing centred around “business email compromise” (BEC), a form of cyberattack where scammers target employees of businesses, often impersonating someone senior in the company. Scammers often request information or action, such as paying an invoice that looks legitimate, but the account numbers have been changed to that of the criminal’s.

BEC can also involve the infiltration of a company’s email systems and send emails directly from a company account to appear more legitimate.

Mr Stockwell said an additional layer of security when dealing with government agencies was Gov ID, while nearly 2.3 million people had signed up with facial recognition security.

When dealing generally with invoices, however, Mr Stockwell said there was still a large risk for businesses. He said e-invoicing was one way the ATO was trying to take email out of the equation for business transactions and dealing with the government.

Opportunity for fraudsters

“There’s about $1.2 billion in invoices per year transacted through the Australian economy – there’s a lot of opportunity out there for fraudsters,” he said. “Ninety per cent of that goes through an email and a PDF attached to it, so it’s a very risky proposition.

“What e-invoicing is about is switching out so that you are dealing with software-to-software. You use your existing software that you use as a business today, the invoicing will be enabled within there, and you use that to actually transmit the data across to your trading partner and their software, so you’re in a secure environment when doing that.”

There were four layers to the security of e-invoicing: the network is managed by the ATO; the information is fully encrypted; there are no emails; and, if fraud does occur, the ability to recover the data is easier.

Australian Federal Police cybercrime operations commander Chris Goldsmith said about one-third of the 67,500 cyberattacks reported to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in the past financial year related to fraud and BEC, including invoicing fraud and employee impersonation.

The ACCC estimates only 13 per cent of attacks are reported. A Business Email Compromise taskforce, known within the AFP as Operation Dolos, was established in 2020, teaming up with law enforcement agencies in Europe, the UK and US.

“In July 2021, we saw an Australian financial firm fall victim [to BEC]. They received a falsified invoice for over $600,000. The finance area paid that invoice thinking they were paying a legitimate invoice that they received from a business that they normally deal with,” Mr Goldsmith said.

“That $600,000 has been sent into accounts controlled by criminals. The criminals then very quickly laundered those funds, converting it into gold bullion, cryptocurrency, cash withdrawals and other payment mechanisms.”

The AFP partnered with NSW Police and Victoria Police to investigate the fraud, and in April this year identified and arrested a person who was laundering the money, recovering $140,000.

“That case study really highlights how quickly and easily companies can fall victim to this type of scam,” Mr Goldsmith said.