Seen on the Screen: Forging Ahead in the Fight Against Fraud

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Seen on the Screen: Forging Ahead in the Fight Against Fraud

“So far, the session that has left the greatest impression on me is ‘Seeing What You Want to See: How Confirmation Bias Affects Fraud Examinations.’ It was helpful to examine my own bias, how it could hinder a fraud investigation and what I can personally do to make sure I remain objective to the facts of the case. I will definitely use this information immediately.” — Ugunda Toussant, CFE, Senior Investigator at Kinecta Federal Credit Union

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Cybercrime in the Age of COVID-19

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Cybercrime in the Age of COVID-19

“COVID was a golden era for people wanting to commit cyber fraud [and] cyber threats,” Robert Herjavec told attendees at the 32nd Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference. As he addressed the virtual audience while sitting in his Toronto home, he looked back on a year that saw the coronavirus upend people’s lives and open opportunities for fraudsters like never before.

Herjavec may be best known as one of the judges on “Shark Tank,” the Emmy award-winning TV show about aspiring entrepreneurs that is now heading into its 13th season. But he also has a day job as Founder and CEO of Herjavec Group — one of the world’s most innovative cybersecurity firms that he founded in 2003.

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Deep Fakes and Social Engineering: Emerging Threats

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Deep Fakes and Social Engineering: Emerging Threats

Humans communicate. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. At its most basic level, communication is simply the exchange and transference of information. Since the very beginning, humans have also been trying to hide, obfuscate and muddle information to keep it from getting to the wrong audience.

During his session titled “The Future of Cybercrime: AI, Deepfakes and Beyond,” Dominique Brack, CFE, CISSP, CISA, provided attendees of the 32nd Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference with a brief but thorough history of information security.

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Delving Into the Psychology of Billionaire Fraudsters

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Delving Into the Psychology of Billionaire Fraudsters

Preet Bharara laughed when asked about how he feels about “Billions,” the TV show that is loosely based on his investigation of the hedge fund SAC Capital when he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District Court of New York.

“It is fun for there to be a television show that is popular, even though it takes a lot of liberties, that is about the U.S. attorney as opposed to the district attorney … so that was nice,” he told ACFE vice president and general counsel John Warren, J.D., CFE, at the 32nd Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference.

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Lessons in Whistleblowing: How the ACORN 8 Triumphed in the Face of Adversity

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Lessons in Whistleblowing: How the ACORN 8 Triumphed in the Face of Adversity

The very public decline and fall of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) involved bitter partisan battles, allegations of voter fraud and a secret video recording. But it is also a story of heroes — namely a group of eight people — who at great personal sacrifice exposed embezzlement at the community-based advocacy group.

It is that clutch of brave souls — better known as the ACORN 8 — that wins this year’s Sentinel Award, which the ACFE bestows annually on a person or group of people who, without regard to personal or professional consequences, publicly discloses wrongdoing in business or government.

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Is Fraud Risk Assessment Any More Accurate Than Fortune Telling?

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Is Fraud Risk Assessment Any More Accurate Than Fortune Telling?

When you think of a fortune teller, you may picture an older woman with a scarf on her head hunched over a crystal ball or a man sporting impressive facial hair and lots of rings shuffling a deck of tarot cards. Regardless of how you picture this hypothetical fortune teller, you likely are already judging them through a skeptical lens. Fraud examiners tend to be skeptical by nature, and people who read palms, purport to talk to dead family members or promise any sort of glimpse into the future seem to promise the impossible. However, the way that fortune tellers use cold readings in their practices can have many similarities to how anti-fraud professionals approach fraud risk assessments.

In his session, “Fraud Precognition: Crystal Balls, Tarot Cards, and Other Risk Management Tools,” at the 32nd Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference, Jack Healey, CFE, CPA/CFF, compared some fortune telling techniques to common pitfalls in fraud risk assessment. Healey, the CEO of Bear Hill Advisory Group, told attendees that when approaching fraud risks, they need to ask themselves, “Am I any better than a fortune teller?”

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Seen on the Screen: Reshaping and Relearning

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Seen on the Screen: Reshaping and Relearning

“Technology has continued to advance and enable remote collaboration better than ever while we are all still physically apart — a silver lining to the pandemic! I have appreciated technology and video conferencing enabling more frequent and timely collaboration with fellow anti-fraud professionals, such as through the remote roundtable discussions provided by the ACFE for Corporate Alliance members and through Discord at the Global Fraud Conference.” — James Rumph, CFE, Sr. Director, Enterprise Anti-Fraud Team at Nationwide Insurance and Chairperson of the ACFE Chapter Leaders Committee

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