FRAUD UPDATE: IATA Fraudulent Emails Warning

This is to remind all air transport industry participants to remain vigilant in the face of continuous fraudulent activity involving individuals impersonating IATA staff or purporting to act for IATA via email and telephone.

Regrettably, some companies have fallen victim to fraudulent attacks and transferred substantial amounts of funds into fraudulent bank accounts. This is due to misleading information from fraudsters and illegitimate use of IATA’s logo and name.

In order to prevent individuals and companies from becoming victims, IATA is communicating with as many members of the air transport industry as possible to share valuable data on how to detect fraudulent email attempts.

Please follow the link below for access to our revised guidance document, "Fraudulent Emails Warning_Sept 2014", which contains examples of commonly used email fraud techniques and suggestions to better protect your organization.

http://www.iata.org/Documents/fraudulent-emails-warning.pdf

In order to obtain this document manually, please navigate to the IATA.org website. Once there, please click on "Contact & Support" in the upper right-hand section of the page. Under "Contact", you will note a link to "Report a fraudulent e-mail or check the validity of an e-mail". Clicking this link takes you to the Fraudulent e-Mails information page where you may download the new guidance document (pdf) as well as review the most recently used fraudulent email addresses and learn of current schemes.

Key points include:

  • The fraudsters contact users by email or telephone, under false names, sometimes using similar or identical names as those of IATA officials, seeking payment for products or services and/or claiming payments for outstanding amounts due.
  • The fraudsters use an email address resembling IATA email addresses but using different domains such as '@gmail.com' or '@iata-receivable.org'.
  • The fraudsters spoof the '@iata.org' email domain by using addresses such as 'accounts@iata.org'. Generally, such emails include different reply-to addresses.
  • The fraudsters may also use forged documents bearing the IATA logo or include links in the email to a fake website.
  • Always be wary of requests to update bank account information.
  • Whenever in doubt as to the authenticity of communications purporting to be from IATA, whether  requesting payment or not, please do not respond to the email and kindly notify IATA immediately at information.security@iata.org

Fraudulent internet use is a crime and IATA takes any abuse of its identity very seriously

We ask that you please review this information carefully and distribute it amongst colleagues in your company, especially those that are responsible for settling invoices.

We thank you for your assistance in fighting fraud.