Insider Threats
Not every threat comes from outside. Employees and contractors with payment access can change bank details, create fake suppliers, or approve fraudulent payments without anyone noticing.
Source: KPMG Fraud Barometer
What are insider payment threats?
Insider threats are fraud committed by people who already have legitimate access to your payment systems. They don't need to hack in, phish credentials, or impersonate anyone. They're already inside, and they know exactly how your processes work.
Unlike business email compromise or payment redirection fraud, insider threats bypass external defences entirely. Your firewall, email filters, and spam detection are irrelevant when the person committing fraud has a company login.
The most common forms include changing supplier bank details to accounts they control, creating fictitious suppliers with their own bank details, approving fraudulent invoices, and duplicating legitimate payments to secondary accounts. Most go undetected for months because the person responsible is also the one who would normally catch it.
How insider payment fraud happens
Insider fraud is patient and systematic. The people committing it understand your controls and know how to avoid them.
Access and familiarity
The insider already has legitimate access to your accounting software, supplier records, or payment approval workflows. They know who checks what, which payments get scrutinised, and which ones fly under the radar.
Small, quiet changes
They modify a supplier's bank details to an account they control. Or they create a new supplier record that looks legitimate but doesn't exist. The changes are small enough that no one questions them.
Payments flow through
The next payment run processes normally. The fraudulent payment blends in with legitimate ones. A few thousand dollars here, a few thousand there. Nothing that triggers a manual review.
Discovery comes late
The fraud is typically discovered months later, often by accident: a supplier calls about a missing payment, an auditor spots a discrepancy, or the insider leaves the company and the pattern becomes visible.
Warning signs of insider fraud
Insider fraud is hard to detect because the person committing it knows your blind spots. But there are patterns.
Frequent bank detail changes
A single employee regularly updates supplier bank details without clear justification or supplier correspondence.
New suppliers with no trail
Supplier records are created without purchase orders, contracts, or an approval chain. The supplier exists only in the accounting system.
Resistance to audits or oversight
The employee discourages others from reviewing payment records, insists on handling certain suppliers alone, or gets defensive about process changes.
Payments just under approval thresholds
Invoices consistently land just below the amount that requires a second signature or management approval.
Living beyond visible means
Not always obvious, but sudden lifestyle changes in an employee with payment access shouldn't be ignored.
No segregation of duties
The same person can create a supplier, enter an invoice, and approve the payment. This is the single biggest enabler of insider fraud.
How ezyshield prevents insider payment fraud
ezyshield removes the ability for any single person to redirect payments without independent verification. Changes require the payee to re-verify.
External verification
Bank details are verified against the actual payee, not just approved internally. Insiders can't bypass biometric verification.
Changes = re-verification
Any change to payment details triggers re-verification. The payee must re-confirm ownership before money moves.
Tamper-proof audit trail
Every verification, change, and approval is logged immutably. No one can alter records after the fact.
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Independent verification that no single person can bypass.
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Trust your people. Verify your payments.
ezyshield ensures no single person can redirect payments without independent verification. Protection from the inside out.