Online Criminal Impersonation 101: Our Own Case of CEO Fraud

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You’re probably familiar with the legal term of criminal impersonation, but how does this felony take place when it’s online?

What is the usual approach employed by hackers or someone with malicious intent towards you personally?

What can you expect from it?

Are the impersonators risking anything?

How can you find out and protect yourself from its effects?

All these questions and more will be addressed below. In the following story, I’ll share with you the key facts of online criminal impersonation, as well as show you what happened in our own organization.

Wondering what you will learn from this post?

First, the ground facts on what is criminal impersonation in general and online criminal impersonation in particular.

Then, the basics of what is CEO fraud, how it usually works, how to spot it and how to prevent becoming a victim of it.

Finally, a look inside a real-life example from our own company. A group of not very smart hacker wannabes tried to impersonate our CEO in a bad attempt at CEO fraud. As much as we were amused, we know this tactic can be successful if you’re not careful, so we decided to share the story with you all, as a cautionary tale.

Ready?

Here we go!

What Is Defined as Criminal Impersonation?

First of all, and this may be a bit of a surprise, you should know that it’s not always illegal to impersonate a person or business entity, or to claim you are them although you are not.

Shocked?

We understand.

One of the virtues and curses of the internet is that some degree of anonymity and creative falsehood are always allowed. If a strict forbiddance would be set in stone about this, people could never perform satire, fantasy humor, role-playing and so on. These are all quasi-harmless activities but crucial for nurturing a climate of free speech.

As much as it can be dismaying to discover that pictures of you or your family members are used by fake profiles and the like, it’s not a criminal offense.

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