Man-in-the-Middle Attack

What it means

In a man-in-the-middle attack, a criminal positions themselves between two parties who believe they are talking directly to each other. In a payments context this usually means quietly monitoring an email thread between a business and its supplier, often after compromising one mailbox, and waiting for an invoice to be sent. At the right moment the attacker intercepts the message and swaps the genuine bank details for their own before it reaches the payer. To both sides the conversation looks entirely normal. A common Australian example is a construction firm that has been discussing a progress payment with a subcontractor for weeks, then receives a final invoice, on the real letterhead, with an account number that has been silently altered.

Why it matters for Australian finance teams

Because the exchange comes through a trusted, established thread, the usual warning signs are missing. There is no odd sender address and no first-time contact, which is exactly why payment redirection losses remain among the costliest business scams reported to the ACCC and Scamwatch. Finance teams that rely on matching details to a previous email are matching against a message the attacker may already control.

How ezyshield helps

The only reliable defence is to confirm account ownership out of band, not to trust what arrives in the email. ezyshield verifies the person, the business through ABN and ASIC records, and that the payee owns the nominated bank account before you pay, and re-verifies the moment those details change, so an intercepted account number does not pass. Every check is recorded in an append-only audit trail. See how it works and verify a supplier bank account in Australia.