Fraud Auditing, Detection, and Prevention Blog

A Peek Behind the Curtain to Look at Account Take Over Attacks

Sep 17, 2024 1:20:02 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Auditing, Cyberattack, ...

Businesses face a growing threat of account take over attacks as fraudsters become more sophisticated and take advantage of advances in technology. This week, we're pulling back the curtain to take a closer look at them and how to add this to your fraud protection strategy. 

Fraud Trivia: Phishing

Phishing is a prevalent type of social engineering that aims to steal data from the message receiver. Typically, this data includes personal information, usernames and passwords, and/or financial information. Phishing is consistently named as one of the top 5 types of cybersecurity attacks.

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An Analysis of Modern Internal Control Structures and Their Efficacy

Aug 21, 2024 8:25:58 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Auditing ...

The theme of the last three blogs was “look behind the curtain” in order to tell the fraud story. Upon reflection, maybe I did not tell the entire fraud story. Maybe, I did not look behind the right curtain. So, this month, we are going to look behind a different curtain.

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Fraud Audit Insights: Revealing The Fraud Story

May 20, 2024 2:05:54 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Schemes, Fraud Auditing, ...

My last series of blogs discussed strategies for detecting shell companies. I know they work because I have refined the strategies throughout my career. Now we will discuss what causes those strategies to fail.

What are the inhibitors to the successful use of artificial intelligence in fraud detection? Humans.

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Anatomy of a Real-life Shell Company Pass-Through Scheme

Mar 20, 2024 11:39:15 AM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Data Analytics, Fraud Risk Identification, ...

This story is about a passthrough scheme. It is my opinion that most large companies have one of more pass-through schemes occurring. What makes it difficult to detect or prevent these schemes is that the scheme will comply with all of your controls. Your company has received the goods or services. Therefore, your ability to detect these schemes is predicated on your understanding of how these schemes occur and what they look like.

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Mastering Shell Company Detection: Is Their Credible Evidence to Perform a Forensic Exam?

Dec 12, 2023 9:49:22 AM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Auditing, Fraud Based Approach, ...

 

In this series of blogs, we are looking at the practice of using a fraud audit to detect shell company schemes occurring in an accounts payable file. Because the practice of effective fraud auditing is grounded in knowledge, we will start with a knowledge section and then delve into a demonstration of the fraud audit process.

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Mastering Shell Company Detection: Practical Steps for Fraud Auditors: Part 5

Nov 15, 2023 12:14:12 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Risk Statements, Fraud Schemes, ...

In this series of blogs, we are looking at the practice of using a fraud audit to detect shell company schemes occurring in an accounts payable file. Because the practice of effective fraud auditing is grounded in knowledge, we will start with a knowledge section and then delve into a demonstration of the fraud audit process.

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Mastering Shell Company Detection: Practical Steps for Fraud Auditors: Part 4

Oct 16, 2023 9:18:00 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Auditing, Fraud Based Approach, ...

 

In this series of blogs, we are looking at the practice of using a fraud audit to detect shell company schemes occurring in an accounts payable file. Because the practice of effective fraud auditing is grounded in knowledge, we will start with a knowledge section and then delve into a demonstration of the fraud audit process.

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Mastering Shell Company Detection: Practical Steps for Fraud Auditors Part 3

Sep 16, 2023 7:30:00 AM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Auditing, Fraud Based Approach, ...

 

In this series of blogs, we are looking at the practice of using a fraud audit to detect shell company schemes occurring in an accounts payable file. Because the practice of effective fraud auditing is grounded in knowledge, we will start with a knowledge section and then demonstrate the fraud audit process.

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Mastering Shell Company Detection: Practical Steps for Auditors Part 2

Aug 14, 2023 5:32:05 PM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Risk Statements, Fraud Auditing, ...

In this series of blogs, we are discussing how auditors can detect shell company schemes that are occurring in their accounts payable files. Because the practice of effective fraud auditing is grounded in knowledge, each blog will have a knowledge section as well as a practical audit section. (This blog will not discuss how organized crime groups use shell companies to perpetrate criminal activities.)

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Using Fraud Auditing to Detect Shell Company Fraud Schemes

Jul 14, 2023 8:20:42 AM / by Leonard W. Vona posted in Fraud Auditing, Concealment Strategies, ...

Using Fraud Auditing to Detect Shell Company Fraud Schemes

The last two blogs were an esoteric discussion on fraud auditing using either a principal-based approach or a rule-based approach. With this blog, we'll launch into the practical use of fraud auditing. By way of example, we will look at how to detect shell company fraud schemes perpetrated against your company. Remember, our goal is to make audit the number one reason for fraud detection.

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