‘Do it now’: Scammers impersonate firm’s chairman on Microsoft Teams chat; company almost lost $120k
Such business e-mail compromise scams exploit trusted communication channels used by employees.
The CFO of a Singaporean healthcare firm received an urgent instruction from what appeared to be her company’s chairman and managing director via Microsoft Teams. Believing the request came from the top executives, she prepared to transfer $120,000 to the purported account. However, the 72-year-old director paused when she verified the request with the actual managing director, who denied authorising the transfer.
This close call highlights a surge in business e-mail compromise scams, which cost companies $57.3 million in the first half of 2026, up from $19.5 million in the same period the previous year. Police records show a rise in such cases too, from 156 in the first half of 2025 to 262 in 2026. Scammers impersonate suppliers, clients or senior executives to trick employees into sending money to fraudulent accounts.
In this incident, the attempted scam was thwarted by company policy requiring physical payment slips for authorisation. The bank, UOB, has since enhanced its monitoring of large transactions. Experts warn that scammers are leveraging messaging and voice channels, even AI-enabled ones, to impersonate trusted figures and exploit employees' trust in senior leadership.
They advise verifying urgent payment instructions through established channels before acting, and to be wary of unexpected requests, new bank account details, and instructions to bypass standard protocols.
Written by urgent.news from Straits Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
