Common online scams targeting employees: what every office worker should know
Imagine a situation when your friend, family member or co-worker asks for an urgent wire transfer. Your immediate impulse is to be helpful, efficient, and responsive.
However, that natural instinct is precisely what cybercriminals count on.
While movies often depict hackers writing green code on dark screens to break firewalls, modern cybercrime usually looks like an ordinary email, a quick phone call, or a direct message. Both the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) and Europol's Cybercrime Centre emphasize that the biggest target inside any company is not the server — it is the human behind the keyboard.
Here is a breakdown of the most common scams targeting office workers today, the psychology behind them, and practical habits to keep your workplace safe.
The "boss needs a favor" fraud
Business Email Compromise (BEC), often called CEO Fraud, is one of the most financially damaging cybercrimes in existence. According to the FBI, BEC scams have cost organizations worldwide tens of billions of dollars.
How it works
Scammers research your company using public platforms like LinkedIn or your company website to learn who reports to whom. They then impersonate an executive using:
- Spoofed or lookalike domains: Creating an address with one tiny difference that tricks the eye (e.g., alex.smith@c0mpany.com instead of alex.smith@company.com).
- Compromised accounts: Actually, breaking into the executive's real inbox using stolen credentials or malware.
Once inside, they make requests that bypass normal channels: wiring money to a "confidential" acquisition account, sending sensitive payroll files, or asking you to purchase gift cards for an impromptu staff appreciation event.
Why it works
Europol points out that this scheme preys on our desire to please senior leadership and our reluctance to question authority, especially when paired with phrases like "Keep this between us" or "I need this done within an hour".
The "updated banking details" trap
If your role touches accounts payable, procurement, or vendor management, you are in the crosshairs for invoice fraud.
How it works
A legitimate vendor you work with regularly appears to send an email: "Please note our bank recently migrated systems. Moving forward, route all invoice payments to our updated account attached."
Scammers often pull this off through thread hijacking. They use malware or phishing to silently monitor ongoing email chains between companies and contractors. When an invoice is due, they step in mid-conversation with identical branding, writing style, and tone providing their own routing and account numbers instead.
The silver bullet rule
Never update payment details using contact information provided in the request itself. If a vendor requests an account change, call your established point of contact using the phone number listed in your original contract or corporate directory.
Phishing, smishing, and vishing
Social engineering now spans every communication channel:
- Phishing (email): Fake notifications that your cloud password has expired, your mailbox is 98% full, or a document has been shared via DocuSign/OneDrive. Clicking leads to a replica login page designed to steal your credentials.
- Smishing (SMS/text): Texts claiming a package delivery failed or an urgent payroll update is needed.
- Vishing (voice/phone): Phone calls from someone claiming to be from your internal IT helpdesk, bank, or a software partner, asking you to read back an authentication code or grant remote workstation access.
The oversharing trap
Not all scams begin with an email; many start on your personal social media profiles.
When employees post photos of office badges, announce new software rollouts, post about business trips, or celebrate joining a specific department, attackers take notes.
Both the FBI and Europol caution that details like your birthday, alma mater, vacation dates, and organization structure give scammers everything they need to crack security questions, craft targeted spearphishing attacks, or time their impersonation schemes when the executive is genuinely out of town.
How to build a culture of "skeptical verification"
Protecting your workplace doesn't require a degree in computer science.
It comes down to four consistent habits:
- Practice out-of-band verification. If a message involves money, login credentials, or sensitive data, verify it through a second, independent communication channel. If you got an email, pick up the phone. If you got a text, send an internal chat. Never reply directly to the suspicious message.
- Slow down on urgent requests. Cybercriminals create artificial crises because people under stress skip critical steps. If an email insists that a deal will collapse or a service will be canceled unless you act in ten minutes, take a deep breath. Urgency is almost always a tactic.
- Protect your multi-factor authentication (MFA). Never approve an MFA prompt or push notification you didn't initiate yourself. If your phone suddenly pings with a login approval while you're pouring a coffee, someone has your password and is trying to bypass your second layer of defense.
- Report all suspicious activity. If you accidentally clicked a suspicious link or entered your credentials, report it to your IT or security team immediately. Speed is everything. As the FBI notes, if financial fraud is reported quickly, banks and law enforcement often have a window of opportunity to freeze the transfer and recover stolen funds.
The bottom line
Firewalls and spam filters can block malicious traffic, but the final line of defense is always human judgment. Whenever an email or message creates artificial urgency, asks for confidentiality, or involves money and credentials, take two minutes to confirm the request through an independent channel. Pausing to verify before you click or wire funds is the single most effective way to protect yourself and your company.