Election Confusion Designed to Steal Your Data and Assets

Criminals are using election confusion to attempt to steal your data and assets. Don't become a victim!

As we near the end of the year, we're all reminded once again that fraud attempts tend to spike during the holiday season. But this year's fourth quarter offers additional reasons for concern—not only due to the ongoing global pandemic, but also because of tensions surrounding the U.S. presidential election.

Fraudsters are already doing their best to take advantage of voters' confusion about how, where and when they can cast their ballots in a disorienting and seemingly unpredictable environment. For example, there are already reports of fraudulent websites that are offering inaccurate mail-in voting guidelines, as well as fallacious robocalls purporting to be from presidential candidates.

We anticipate that, as election day approaches, fraudsters will try not only the techniques mentioned above, but also phishing campaigns and other scams designed to steal your personal and account information, infect your devices with malware, and gain access to your email and financial accounts.

Be sure that you are aware of these threats and are ready to defend against them. Here are some tips:

• Always pause and ask additional questions when something doesn't seem right.
• Hang up on strangers who call you asking personal questions
• Never open an e-mail attachment that you're not 100% sure is legitimate or you were not expecting.

As a firm, we are doing everything we can to help prevent fraud, among others by verifying money movement between client internal and external accounts. We will always verbally verify wire transfers before approving them and will do our best to flag unusual activity with the help of our custodian.