FBI Publishes Top Email Terms Used By Corporate Fraudsters

Qedward writes "Software developed by the FBI and Ernst & Young has revealed the most common words used in email conversations among employees engaged in corporate fraud. The software, which was developed using the knowledge gained from real life corporate fraud investigations, pinpoints and tracks common fraud phrases like 'cover up,' write off,' 'failed investment,' 'off the books,' 'nobody will find out' and 'grey area'. Expressions such as 'special fees' and 'friendly payments' are most common in bribery cases, while fears of getting caught are shown in phrases such as 'no inspection' and 'do not volunteer information.'"

Comments

Watch your words...

[BeerCat]

"So, this new range of paints is a grey area - neither black nor white. But if you spill any, while painting the library, make sure you keep it off the books. Hang on, there's someone knocking at the door..."

Re:Watch your words...

[AK Marc]

If you are going to paint in the library, make sure to cover up the books. If there is an accident, make sure there is no inspection, and try to avoid special fees for cleanup.

Re:Watch your words...

[wierd_w]

Sadly, several important documents were irreparably damaged by improper regulatory activities which resulted in many important books being cooked, quite literally, by being placed too near to the old radiator style heating systems in the library.

When asked why no-one was notified about important documents being improperly handled like this, many library employees said it was standard operating proceedure to not reveal additional information to internal management, and that it was simply a case of inspectors not doing their jobs that the damage occured.

The library management has begun an internal investigation into the matter, but due to a recent computer mishap coupled with the removal of the obsolete paper copy card cataloge, a considerable amount of vital data was lost or deleted concerning which books the library actually owns, which ones are from inter-library exchange programs, and which ones are missing and unaccounted for.

At the current rate, it is likely that no one will ever find out the true extent of the damages, so disciplinary measures are unlikely to manifest any time soon. Most employees interviewed simply expect a standard "slap on the wrist", followed by business as usual.

Re:Watch your words...

[Luckyo]

I take it you never worked in any kind of monitoring and enforcement. In reality, what grabs your attention (in addition to user reports) is the certain known patterns which give you a starting point from which to investigate.

I did some of investigating certain port scan patterns back when I was admin on a university campus. About 95% of people doing it were innocent of any wrongdoing, usually gamers with games that did massively overly broad LAN IP/port scanning searching for other players running the same game. About 95% of those who weren't were just starting script kiddies, and catching them in act early let me let them off with a slap on the wrist and no real damage to them or other people. Just young nerds who got their "oh my god 10mbps network" back in POTS modem age, saw another couple of hundred clueless people on the same network and figured they could root their unsecured windows machines to pump up their directconnect hub shares.

And then there were two people I got who were seriously trying to search for vulnerabilities and install trojans on computers of others people for much worse reasons, including one asshole who was actively trying (and succeeding in some cases) to access email accounts and other personal data of young female students to better harass them in real life. These two were banned from campus network and none of those two would have been caught that early in act (if at all), if it were for those of us volunteering as admins following up on certain usage patterns.

FBI is giving out certain usage patterns associated with certain kind of crime. I can very much envision this being incorporated into some sort of workplace monitoring scheme on the email server which will have about the same kind of accuracy. But it gives a starting point from which to look at, and nothing more. For example, your spam, while it would certainly attract attention, would pretty much immediately be disgarded as "not what we're looking for" for obvious reasons, because while it does meet the criteria for the starting point, it's also obviously not what any enforcer would be looking for.

Reporting a crime requires crime that was actually perpetrated, and you wanting to report it. In many cases, things can be managed within company/organization without having to involve actual law enforcement with far lesser consequences for all parties involved.

Irony

[boundary]

I wonder if E&Y used this when they were auditing Lehman Brothers...

Sorta like this?

[ArcadeNut]

I know this is a grey area, and this may sound like a cover up, but we need to keep this failed investment off the books or do a write off. Nobody will find out.

Nah, the warez people have got this

[Valacosa]

"I know this is a g2ey 4r34, and this may sound like a c0\/er up, but we need to keep this f41led inv3stment off the b00ks or do a \/\/rite off. N0b0dy will find ou7."

all sounds pretty innocuous to me---

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that how investment bankers talk all the time?