Abuse - how to recognize false e-mail messages

Bilgi

Abuse

Recognizing common types of scam

Unfortunately, digital crime is an everyday reality. We have created this page to be clear on our position and share information with you about common types of scams; real-life situations that we have seen as part of digital collaboration with our customers and business partners.

Important policy statement

Many of the scams want to make you pay to the imposter’s bank account.

Enza Zaden will never ask you to change its bank details over e-mail or phone. Such changes will be sent to you in a separate written statement, on paper. You must verify any change with your Enza Zaden representative by phone, on a phone number that was previously known to you.

Contact us and report issues

It is important to report anything unusual to us. This allows us to work with you to reduce the impact, warn others and raise awareness.

Please report to security@enzazaden.com Always include suspicious e-mail messages as an attachment, as this contains the source information that is needed to analyze it.

Sign up for our Abuse alert 

Common threats and examples

E-mail impersonation

A cybercriminal sends you messages that seem to come from Enza Zaden. They could inquire about payment status or outstanding amounts. If you respond to the message, they will ask you to transfer money to a new bank account, claiming bank issues. They may use an Enza Zaden e-mail address in the so-called display name. However, the message display name is just a line of text where the sender can put in anything. Alternatively, a domain is used that mimics legitimate Enza Zaden domains; i.e. enzazadden.com instead of enzazaden.com.

 
Using business details can make these messages convincing. Business details could come from your and our websites or public sources such as LinkedIn.
 
Example of a false message

 
If the display name is used to impersonate an Enza Zaden address, the reply address usually reveals the real sender address. After all, the imposter will want to receive your response.

 

In the message below the imposter used @enzazaden.ml (ML instead of NL)

E-mail conversation hijack

We have seen cases were a computer virus/malware was able to hijack an e-mail conversation between an Enza Zaden employee and the customer and insert or add to a message. The hacker attempted to convince the customer to pay to a different bank account. 
 
Example of a false message 

 
A reply to the message reveals a different address 

Forged invoice

A customer received an invoice were the Enza Zaden bank information was blanked out and new instructions were added to the footer.

 

Cyber security information

E-mail authenticity markers

Enza Zaden uses all common technical e-mail security standards to allow you to determine the legitimacy of a message:

  • SPF - All our sending systems are authorized to do so via an SPF record. This allows you to check if message comes from our mail system or from an imposter. 
  • DKIM - All our messages are digitally signed. This allows you to check that a message is legitimate, unchanged and comes from Enza Zaden. 
  • DMARC - This tells the recipient e-mail system what to do if the DKIM signature fails or misses. Our DMARC policy is set Quarantine. 

Please contact your IT or e-mail provider on how to have your e-mail system check for e-mail authenticity marks.

More information on cyber security from public sources

The US government cyber security agency has useful guidance that could help to get you organized. The cyber security essentials guide provides a good basic overview.

The NIST Cyber security framework provides a profound approach to cyber security.