Waikato Business News August/September 2018

14 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS August/September 2018
Jo Wrigley and Jason Dawson.
Parekawhia McLean and Kahurangi Taylor.
Robert Dol, Matt Stark and Graham Dwyer.
Talk about a
revolution
The chat continued after-hours at the
two-day Te Waka regional economic
development summit, held at the Sir Don
Rowlands Centre beside Lake Karapiro.
Linda Bulk and Jannat Maqbool.
A whiteboard tracks progress.
Europe sips Waikato-grown luxury
As we look forward
to longer days and
warmer weather, our
European counterparts will
soon start to feel the chill - and
perhaps warm up with Waikato-grown
tea.
A team from Zealong Tea
Estate has recently returned
from a trip to Europe, where
they served their certified
organic, international
award-winning tea at the
Superyacht Cup, before visiting
current and prospective
clients in four other European
countries.
SPAIN
The international yachting
event in Palma de Mallorca
A simple website mistake that can get you scammed
A
friend
THE DIGITAL WORLD
of mine, who is
the internal accountant
at a charitable organisation,
recently almost fell
for a scam email. It looked to
be from the CEO and had an
invoice that needed paying.
Thankfully, he noticed that
the way the email was signed
off was different than normal.
He checked with the CEO and
found the email never came
from him. It was a scam.
Recent media reports have
revealed that New Zealanders
are increasingly being targeted
by overseas criminal syndicates
for scams. Authorities
estimate that cybercrime is
now costing New Zealand individuals
and businesses $400
million to $500 million every
year.
But even with this rapidly
growing problem, a surprisingly
large number of government
departments and businesses
are making a simple
website mistake that is significantly
increasing the risk to
themselves and their customers
of being targeted in a scam.
Thanks to scammers bombarding
us over the years, people
have heightened awareness
attracts up to 500 participants,
including prestigious yacht
owners, skippers, and crews
from all over the world. In
support of the event’s Destination
Partner, 100% Pure
New Zealand, Zealong tea
was served daily in the regatta
village, and gifted to all yacht
owners.
SWITZERLAND
The team visited Zürich’s
famous Confiserie Sprüngli.
Founded in 1836, the confectioner
is known around the
world as a luxury chocolatier
and for its signature macarons,
which were served alongside
Sprüngli’s exclusive tea selection
featuring Zealong tea.
of some of the more obvious
scams.
We’ve all received emails
purportedly from PayPal or a
bank informing us that we need
to login to check something –
by simply clicking the “Login”
button in the email. We’re wise
enough, however, to know that,
while the email may look legitimate
at first glance, the link
won’t take us to the proper site.
Inspecting the link may well
reveal that it directs to something
like paypal.com.xyzltd.
com/login – a simple enough
swindle to spot for those who
are remotely tech savvy.
But where medium and
large organisations can be vulnerable
is simply our reliance
on email.
Like with my friend’s situation,
the accounts department
receives an email from the
CEO with an invoice he has
received.
“I’ve agreed with XYZ supplier
that we’ll pay this invoice
immediately. Can you please
arrange for it to be processed
by tomorrow?” the CEO says
in the email. Only in this situation
the accounts person fires
back a quick email asking a
UNITED KINGDOM
The Zealong team spoke to
enthusiastic staff at Harrod’s
about New Zealand-grown tea.
The tea is now marketed officially
in the famous department
store as Zealong tea, which is a
great achievement (it was previously
sold as “New Zealand
tea” since 2014).
GERMANY
Two years into an exclusive
trade agreement, a visit to
TeeGschwendner’s flagship
store in Hamburg was a must.
A presentation and tea-tasting
attracted media and customers
alike.
Zealong Green, Aromatic
clarifying question. The CEO
then replies, and the accounts
team get the invoice loaded
and paid.
Little did the accounts team
know that the “CEO” sending
the emails was actually a scammer.
Alternatively, an accounts
person receives an email from a
manager in their company saying,
“XYZ supplier have been
in touch with me this morning
to say they’ve changed banks
and would like us to make
payment to their new account
this month please. I phoned
back to confirm, and Jenny in
accounts confirmed it. See her
email below with the new bank
account number.”
Again, this type of scam
email could dupe even the
most attentive accounts person
and the scammers would end
up receiving the invoice payments
instead of the legitimate
creditor.
The one trick to making this
possible is that the scammer
needs to purchase a domain
name that looks very similar to
the real domain. This enables
them to send and receive emails
from that domain, enabling
Oolong, and Black teas are sold
in TeeGschwendner’s 123 German
stores, as well as in partner
store Theehandlung Schönbichler,
a Viennese tea store with
a 148- year history.
CZECH REPUBLIC
A stop in Prague saw Zealong
visit several of Czechia’s 75
Oxalis stores. As a new market,
there is great potential with this
specialty tea and coffee company,
which is now celebrating
its 25th anniversary. Oxalis
stocks Zealong Green, Pure
Oolong, and Black.
“It is extremely encouraging
for us, as a small-scale operator
and the only tea producer in our
country, that such high-profile
them to reply to the question
from the accounts team.
For example, if you worked
at Waikato DHB and received
an email from name.surname@
waikatodhb.nz, you probably
wouldn’t think twice. But, at
the time of writing, the domain
waikatodhb.nz is not owned by
Waikato DHB at all. The same
is true of reservebank.co.nz.
Government departments
aren’t the only ones making
this mistake. Many New Zealand
businesses are in the same
boat.
Instead of targeting your
company directly with this
approach, a scammer could
email your clients, pretending
to be you, and let them know
your bank account number
has changed. How would they
establishments and tea specialists
around Europe are taking
an interest in Zealong tea,” says
Zealong general manager Gigi
Crawford.
> BY JOSH MOORE
Josh Moore is the managing director at digital marketing agency,
Duoplus. josh@duoplus.nz www.duoplus.nz
know who your clients are?
Simply by first emailing the
accounts person on your team,
pretending to be the manager/
owner with the request, “Can
you send me a full list of our
accounts receivable? Preferably
in an Excel file please”.
The good news is there’s
one easy step to prevent this
particular type of scam: Buy
the “.nz” versions of your
domain names, and other main
versions that are available.
There are, or course, a myriad
of domain endings nowadays
– we call these “top level
domains” or “TLDs” for short.
We have the traditional ones of
.co.nz, .org.nz, .govt.nz and the
less common .net.nz. Plus the
new ones like .nz .kiwi, .geek.
nz and more.
At home in Waikato, Zealong
tea can be purchased at
Zealong Tea Estate, online at
www.zealong.com, or at select
retailers.
Unless you’re an enormous
business, like Google, there is
no point registering all of the
domain names that could contain
your organisation name.
However, owning the .co.nz
and .nz domains for your brand
is an essential foundation for
protecting your organisation
from being an easy target of
these types of scams.
.nz domain names can be
registered by anyone in the
world, making it easy for overseas
syndicates to purchase
them. So, if the .nz version of
your domain name is available,
and you haven’t registered it
yet, take action today. It costs
just a few dollars per year
and, alongside protecting your
brand, can help protect you
from these types of scams too.