Part of the fraud trends for the future series
This course is a part of our ongoing series on Fraud Trends in the Future. This specific course focuses on targeted attacks. In a targeted attack, your organization is singled out because the attacker has a specific interest in your business or has been paid to target you. The groundwork for the attack could take months as the attacker identifies the best route to deliver their exploit directly to your systems or users.
In this course, we discuss the types of targeted attacks, the phases of such attacks, and mitigation methods. Fraudsters continually seek new ways to exploit private information. Cybercrime and fraud prevention is an evolving field shaped by the varied tactics used by attackers. To effectively mitigate fraud risks, professionals must understand the current fraud trends.
The initial segment of this series focused on fraud trends identified for 2023 and beyond. Broadly, these trends include:• Automation• Account takeover• Adoption of new digital payment methods• Balancing fraud and consumer friction• Rise of synthetic identities• Escalating cost of fraud• Targeted attacks• Strong need for real-time assessment• Need for multi-layered fraud assessment• Account security
Within each succeeding segment, we focus on specific aspects to help professionals begin adapting and integrating these trends into their organizations.
Lynn Fountain has over 45 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 24 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Ms. Fountain has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. In 2011, as the Chief Audit Executive for an international construction/ engineering firm, she was involved in the active investigation of a joint venture fraud. The investigation included work with the FBI and ultimately led to indictment of the perpetrators and recovery of $13M. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own training and consulting business and is a regular trainer for the AICPA. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. -“Leading The Internal Audit Function” and -“Ethics and The Internal Auditor Political Dilemma” were published by Taylor & Francis In addition Ms. Fountain was a contributing author to the certification program exam for the National Association of Accountants. She also has certificate programs on various on-line platforms. Ms. Fountain has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).
Provincial regulators of CPAs in Canada do not require that independent providers of CPD be approved to offer courses. Instead, individual CPAs are responsible for assessing whether a CPD activity meets their requirements, and may take activities from any source provided those requirements are met.
Every course offered on LearnFormula is delivered by a qualified subject matter expert or learning organization, and advances learning objectives that are relevant to the responsibilities or professional competencies of Canadian CPAs. All activities on LearnFormula are quantifiable in terms of hours, and are also verifiable, in that users receive documented evidence of their attendance via a certificate of completion after finishing a course (and this certificate is stored by LearnFormula indefinitely). Nearly 100,000 Canadian CPAs successfully satisfy their CPD requirements via LearnFormula on an annual basis.
