Cyber hackers swipe $700,000 from Jacksonville-based church network

The Florida Baptist Convention, based in Jacksonville, has announced it lost more than half a million dollars in a recent hack. The church lost money that was meant to help a community of churches and ministries.

“As you can imagine, our convention staff and state board of missions is distraught over this loss of financial resources,” leaders wrote in a statement.

Hackers were able to craft an email that looked exactly like the business process that the Florida Baptist Convention had set up to be able to support some of the mission work that they wanted to do this is according to their statement.

Ben Finke is a cybersecurity expert who co-founded Jacksonville-based OnDefend.

He knows this scheme all too well. In this case, he believes hackers got access to someone’s email, learned how the organization worked and then sent out fake billing information.

“And so it gets pretty easy for them to figure out if I doctor this up and put a different account number in here, this will look legit to somebody on the other side, and I bet I can get them to send me some money,” Finke said.

FBC sent News4JAX a statement that said the team is working with the FBI, local law enforcement, their bank and insurance company to try to get the money back.

Full Link ( Here )