Europe's largest manufacturer of wires and electrical cables has lost €40 million (A$59.38 million) in an online scam, with one of its staff being duped into transferring this amount to the wrong bank account.
Germany's Leoni AG, the fourth largest company in this sector, announced on 16 August that it had lost the money on 12 August. The company has more than 75,000 employees in 32 countries.
The transfer was made at the Leoni factory in Bistrita, northern Romania, where about 6000 people work. It is said to have been made to a bank in the Czech Republic.
A young woman was working as the chief financial officer at this factory and she received what she believed to be an email from one of the company's top executives in Germany.
{loadposition sam08}Company employees say that transfer of finances was done regularly after confirmation was received by email.
The target was carefully chosen by the attackers as this factory alone had the authority to transfer money. Leoni has four factories in Romania.
Romanian investigators said the email that the CFO received was carefully crafted and was more or less identical to emails making similar requests.
Leoni has begun an internal investigation to try and find out how the scam was carried out and whether any employees had a hand in it.
This kind of attack is known as a whaling attack, CEO fraud or business email compromise.