Flagler School District Loses Significant Amount of Money in Apparent Phishing Scheme Involving Vendor FlaglerLive

pFlaglerLiveppNo Bull no Fluff No SmudgesppOctober 3 2023 FlaglerLive 17 CommentsppLast Updated 928 pmppThe Flagler County school district was the target of electronic fraud involving what Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly described as a pretty significant amount of money in a scheme having all the makings of phishinga common method by fraudsters of impersonating familiar contacts either to induce a swindle or to make the recipient reveal sensitive financial information      adsbygoogle windowadsbygoogle push The Flagler County school district late today issued a cryptic press release that stated the district had uncovered an electronic transfer of funds to a possible fraudulent vendor bank account triggering an internal investigation and contact with the FBI and the Flagler County Sheriffs Office The release was issued at 720 pm Superintendent LaShakia Moore informed school board members individually of the matter in early evening by email and by individual phone callsppFlaglerLive has learned but has not confirmed that the sum involved is around 700000 and that the money was intended as payment to a contractor or a vendor involved in the ongoing expansion at Matanzas High School a 226 million project on which it broke ground in late July It did not reach its intended recipient and the scheme may not have been uncovered promptly enough to enable recoveryppIt isnt clear if like many corporations now do the district has insurance to protect against such schemes or how it will make up the money if it is not recovered The school board will have to be apprised and discuss the next stepsin open public sessions this is not the sort of matter it can legally discuss behind closed doors      adsbygoogle windowadsbygoogle push The message is that were looking at our processes were taking a close look at our processes Wheeler said which again hints at what may have gone wrong Phishing is a preying method that exploits vulnerabilities a lack of awareness or detection of what subsequently turns out to be obvious fraudppNo one inside the district has been suspended or placed on administrative leave Wheeler saidppI dont know when the school district determined when they were a victim so timeliness of taking a report and timeliness of taking action is critical in these kinds of investigations Staly said He would not confirm the sum of money or the nature of the payments saying the investigation is in its earliest stagesppWhat I can confirm is late this afternoon virtually at the end of the workday Staly said school district reported an allegation of wire fraud to the Sheriffs Office and involving a pretty significant amount of money I cannot confirm that another agency is involved because I dont know who else the school may have reported it to We know they have reported it to us      adsbygoogle windowadsbygoogle push The district may have lost some time reporting it to the Sheriffs Office the fraud was discovered this morning a district spokesperson said so several hours passed before the Sheriffs Office was informeda critical lapse in the sort of cases that are compared to missingchildren cases the earliest hours matter the mostppThe sheriff recalled a case of phishing when he was vice president of the Ginn Corporation in charge of its security companywide in and out of Florida They were the victims of a phishing virus but the CFO did not realize they were a victim so it was not reported to Staly for days By the time it was he determined what had happened but I was unable to recover the money because it had been wired to Latvia Then a week or so later they had another hit This time the CFO realized what was going on in a more timely fashion and notified me and I was able to get half the money back before it went to its destination Im not saying thats the case here because its a very preliminary investigation all I can tell you is this is how these frauds work and timeliness in reporting the case is critical in recoveryppStaly said the Sheriffs Office only has jurisdiction in Flagler County and most of these criminal enterprises are based in other countries He also noted Unless it reaches millions and millions of dollars the federal agencies have so many reports they dont go the full mile of the investigation But it could be different in this case this could be tied to a bigger overall case I dont know at this point We will work it and work with our federal partners if appropriateppStaly stressed that he was speaking in hypotheticals and providing examples dating back more than a decade Hypothetically the present case could be phishing that could be it hypothetically it could be a virus that infected a computer so theres many different ways these kinds of frauds are perpetrated the sheriff said      adsbygoogle windowadsbygoogle push The school board was scheduled to hold a 1 pm closeddoor session to discuss litigation The session which was to have been led by School Board attorney Kristy Gavin was cancelled as Gavin and Moore had both been called away to deal with the fraud caseppThe board did meet for its regularly scheduled workshop at 3 pm Gavin was conspicuously absent though Moore attended the full three hours of that meeting but did not discuss the potential fraud at the time The districts chief financial officer Patti Wormeck participated in some segments of the meeting as she routinely does though its not clear if she was there throughoutppThe superintendent was briefed after the meeting and let them know after the meeting a district spokesperson said of the superintendentppThe release was limited because were dealing with an active investigation were trying to be limited on what we release Jason Wheeler the districts chief spokesperson said If the FBI is involved it wouldnt be a small amount of moneyppThe FBI investigates cyber crimes and financial crimes that cross state lines Phishing Scheme typically dont just cross state lines They cross international borders making recovery that much more difficultppThe soundness of the districts finances and accounts in general is not affected Wheeler said We want to assure the public there has been no data breach on our part and that all district information remains secure and protected the release saidppRather the potential fraud may be a case of vendor frauda bogus vendor posing as one doing business with the district an increasingly common type of fraud across the countryppSchool Board Chair Cheryl Massaro contacted this evening said she was told as little as was made public The superintendent she said informed us that because its an active investigation they cant give us detailed infoppFor now Staly said no focus is off the table These are very technical investigations and very timeconsuming he saidpp JimboXYZ saysppOctober 4 2023 at 110 amppNeed to know who in AccountingAccounts Payable is making this kind of 700K mistake pp c saysppOctober 4 2023 at 133 pmppMaybe you should wait to find out the details before you start blaming an accounting clerk who most probably had the proper paperworkformsauthorizations even though they were possibly faked or forged to make the payment and who DOESNT have the responsibility nor capability of micromanaging every financial transaction ppPointing fingers without knowing the target is a politicians stunt and I for one am tired of the idiotic baseless political circusespp Willy Boy saysppOctober 4 2023 at 246 amppThrowing tax money off the back of the train Bravopp Atwp saysppOctober 4 2023 at 452 amppTax payers will probably pay for the theft If this county was hit I wonder about the rest of the schools in the state Will the insurance pay the money back Time will tellpp Mic saysppOctober 6 2023 at 301 pmppWell tax payer is already paying for the personal expenses of the school board pets so nothing newpp BIG Neighbor saysppOctober 4 2023 at 620 amppSo heres a questionwhat changes have already bee implemented to ensure resiliency There are some things that are appropriate at this time to release from our award winning cyber criminology and communications team Other leaders in the community want to know What lessons were learned and are continuing to learn to adapt This would be more assuring than to read statements that disclose little detail other than frustration for citizenspp David Gardner saysppOctober 4 2023 at 655 amppI am surprised the school district did not report they have an authorized vendor list with approved bank routing and account numbers to wire funds too and the proper approval of the project manager to have Accounts Payable pay the invoicepp dave saysppOctober 4 2023 at 753 amppThe keys words in this article and so many more in the last few weeks Flagler County Schools Maybe an investigation into every darn employee and of course its leadership needs to be done Too many issues and events points so many fingers at board members and school district leadershippp Jay Tomm saysppOctober 4 2023 at 759 amppAll comes back to people being lazy not doing their jobs One does not simply wire 700K without checks balances And as a gov they should have cyber insurance which will recoup the fundspp John saysppOctober 4 2023 at 835 amppOMG now what are they doing This is the most unfunctional Board of Ed and nothing ever seems to get resolved Time to fire all of them and start overpp protonbeam saysppOctober 4 2023 at 951 amppSimply NO REASON for this to happen It was laziness inattention and incompetence that plagues the school board and its administration time for a segregated assembly for the finance dept at the school time for cheeseburgers or Jail but we can be assured of one thing there will be ZERO accountability just like the City of Palm Coast they celebrate success and bury failurepp JimBob saysppOctober 4 2023 at 1001 amppI bet the Dingbat Troika will blame this on Attorney Gavin before the week is outpp Roy Longo saysppOctober 4 2023 at 1027 amppThe three amigos were so worried about the FYO finances solely because of the leaders last name That proved to be a waste of time and effort Now look what happened right under their noses Shame on thempp Kendall saysppOctober 4 2023 at 816 pmppThis is an excellent point Ive wondered why no board member was upset that the district FAILED to track and audit one of their own programs Absolutely nothing was said about it which proves that the investigation into the FYO was not about district accountability and instead about a personal vendetta Mr Furry had against the TristamsppIf Mr Furry had focused on the root of the problem this debacle could have been prevented But Im sure he and the other two stooges are deciding who will be on the hit list once they are done with Gavin Who cares about over 700K when they have people to hurtpp Samuel saysppOctober 4 2023 at 228 pmppUnbelievablepp Celia M Pugliese saysppOctober 4 2023 at 455 pmppCoincidentally our very engaged on city and commission meetings while attending Monday 102 Commission meeting at minute 10129 spoke alerting the commissioners about the city of Fort Lauderdale about a 12 million fraudulent payment to a contractor supposed bill httpswwwyoutubecomwatchvBk6CmCyhozct5084spp Laurel saysppOctober 5 2023 at 246 pmppIn the nearly 20 years I worked for a south Florida city I got only one silly email from that prince who needed money to get out of jail in some foreign country Our info dept was not so hot but a couple years later we got a crack shot team that won awardsppMost not all email sites allow you to see on your computer who is really sending you the email I got an email from and Im making up this name Joe Smith a contractor By hovering over the senders email and not clicking on it email protected it stated email protected so I knew it wasnt Joe Same thing with a contact friend of mine who I hadnt heard from in a couple years Again I hovered my pointer over her familiar contact email name and again it was a email protected If these show up as links they are not real so dont bother Anyway for the fun of it I answered and stated how the heck are you My supposed friend said fine and went off on needing a few bucks to get whatever Man did I give the phony an eye full Never heard from the phony againppAt first I thought the contractors email had been hijacked and told him so Later I figured it out that my email page had been hacked and apparently by some kids in some school eduppMeanwhile I get all kinds of bs texts from Amazon Verizon Fedex and so on that do not come from the real companies Its all phishing I report them and block themppThieves suck The schools IT needs to do a better job as does the people in purchasing and budgetingppYour email address will not be published Required fields are marked ppComment ppName ppEmail ppWebsite pp Notify me of followup comments by emailpp Notify me of new posts by emailpp ppppΔdocumentgetElementById akjs1 setAttribute value new Date getTime ppThis site uses Akismet to reduce spam Learn how your comment data 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