With the wide use of e-mail in the ordinary course of business, hackers increasingly enter e-mail systems to deceive users and defraud them of money or property. This kind of fraud is particularly prevalent in cross-border transactions which, including payment processing, are heavily reliant upon e-mails due to time zones and language barriers. These circumstances provide an opportune chance for hackers to plot their crimes. The most common e-mail fraud is a type of phishing scam, whereby hackers send out payment instructions by using e-mail addresses that are identical or nearly identical to those of staff working for trading companies or senior executives of multinationals. For this reason, it is also known as "trade fraud" or "CEO fraud." When a company discovers it has fallen victim to the fraud, it is often quite helpless because it is difficult for the judicial authorities or financial institutions to discover the fraud and immediately freeze the funds as the funds have been transferred to banks in different jurisdictions and the hackers usually use shell companies to receive funds.
