Police and business operators are bolstering both modern and old-fashioned measures against email scams, which are as common as ever and causing victims to lose millions of baht.
Despite earlier warnings by the Department of Special Investigation against hackers who fool Thai companies and their foreign partners into transferring money to them, businessmen are still falling prey to this old but still successful trick.
The DSI reported that more than 10 companies lost in excess of 50 million baht to email gangs this year. Figures compiled for the first nine months of this year by the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) show a year-on-year increase to 123 cases, with damages soaring to more than 136 million baht, according to TCSD's police inspector Patompong Sillapasuk.
This scam has "co-existed with email boxes for a long time" and it seems to haunt import and export businesses despite the division's two-year crackdown, said Pol Maj Patompong said.
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His concern has been echoed by key business groups in Thailand which, in their recent interviews with the , have agreed to adopt both new and traditional methods of transacting money in a bid to boost their protection against email scams.
Pol Maj Patompong said these hackers do not even use sophisticated methods to get into a business' emails. They simply hack email servers which house a number of business email addresses or directly attack a company's emails by stealing usernames and passwords leaked by malware and computer viruses secretly embedded in their office computers.
The hackers will do two things once they enter these emails. They read all the emails a company writes to its partner to find which talk about money transfers.
They then change the email settings that regulate the inbox, the outbox and the trash bin to counterfeit emails.
Without the company's knowledge, "its real emails will be marked as read and removed to the trash bin," Pol Maj Patompong said.
The criminals then fake emails telling the trading partner that the company has changed its bank account and would like payment to be sent to the new account, which is in fact the account of the criminals.
The trick sounds too unrealistic to work, but it does, said Pol Maj Patompong. The fraudsters are calm and patient, waiting for the right moment to strike, Pol Maj Patompong observed.
The TCSD found hackers, in particular from West Africa, are entering China in large numbers, where they lure Thai companies dealing with the Chinese.
The Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce (TCCC) is aware of such tricks, but has received no complaints from its members, said TCCC president Jitti Tangsithpakdi, who believes most victims to be inexperienced businessmen.
But this does not mean the 106-year-old business group will take the threat lightly.
It is preparing to use a new money transfer method called "TCC Pay", run by the TCC, to work as a so-called go-between, helping along business deals between Thai and Chinese companies, said TCCC's deputy secretary-general Vichai Mongkolchaichawan.
The companies can choose to transfer through TCC Pay to help them check whether money has been paid to the right persons and whether goods sent have been delivered, he said.
"The new method should become firmed up in the first quarter of next year," Mr Vichai said.
While the TCCC looks certain to adopt this modern approach, the Thai AEO Importer and Exporter Association recommends a more old-fashioned way to cope with hackers.
Instead of always relying on a faster and convenient online money transfer, companies can carry out the transfer the old fashioned way by going to bank counters, association president Pornsil Patchrintanakul told the Bangkok Post.
Bank staff will help check the identities of trading companies, he said, adding this method can be an option especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which he believes are most prone to hacks.
"But large companies are also victims," Pol Maj Patompong said.
"I've just found a new case today," he wrote, referring to a recent complaint.