Safeguarding Your Business: Insights from Western Alliance Bank’s Cybersecurity and Fraud Prevention Webinar

As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, businesses face increasing threats from phishing, ransomware and identity theft. These attacks can significantly impact a company’s financial stability and reputation.

Western Alliance Bank recently hosted a webinar to help organizations understand and combat the risks surrounding cybersecurity and fraud. Read on to learn how Western Alliance Bank can help your company defend against cybercriminals.

How Dangerous Are Fraud Attempts for Business? 

Cybercrime is a $1 trillion per year industry driven by profits, competition, risk and innovation. About 80% of organizations across the country were victims of fraud attempts, which grew by 15% between 2022 and 2023, according to the 2024 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report.

About 90% of organizations report fraud attempts are increasing. It’s crucial for businesses to implement robust fraud prevention and detection strategies to safeguard their assets and maintain stakeholder trust.

Cybercriminals attack company assets like servers, employee’s devices, networks and media such as thumb drives and payment cards.

Steps businesses can take to protect themselves include:

1. Review security practices and technical controls
2. Develop a cyber incident response plan
3. Regularly update employee and vendor access levels
4. Migrate check payments to Automated Clearing House (ACH) or virtual cards using ePayables or Integrated Payables
5. Complete Western Alliance Bank’s cybersecurity training

Choosing Payment Methods to Protect Your Business

Checks and ACH debits were the most targeted payment methods in 2023. While 75% of organizations use checks, they are more expensive than other methods of paying vendors. They are also the #1 way bad actors commit fraud.

“It’s easy for bad actors (or fraudsters) to make alterations on checks,” cautioned George Snow, Western Alliance Bank’s Senior Product Manager.

Western Alliance Bank offers several alternatives to replace risky check payments and defend against check and ACH fraud:

Positive Pay

Check Positive Pay compares your list of checks provided against the checks presented for payment. We pay only the checks you’ve listed, looking at the amount and check number.

If any exceptions are detected, you’ll be notified by email or text message. You will then review the check images online, and decide whether to pay or return each exception item.

ACH Blocks and ACH Positive Pay

To protect against unauthorized ACH transactions, you can opt in to ACH Blocks and ACH Positive Pay.

ACH Block automatically blocks and returns unauthorized incoming ACH debit transactions. The process becomes part of payment procedures, with little to no day-to-day management.

ACH Positive Pay uses payment rules for preapproved ACH payments. Rules can be specific to vendors, amounts, time or a combination. Payments meeting the preapproved rules are automatically accepted. Payments that don’t meet the rules will be presented for review. Unauthorized payments will be returned to the originating bank.

Virtual Cards and ePayables

Other electronic payment methods include virtual cards and ePayables. These eliminate the need for physical checks. This not only lowers your payment disbursement costs, but provides a secure platform for payments.

Integrated Payables

Integrated Payables improves efficiency by providing a single process for making check, wire, ACH and virtual card payments as companies switch from check to electronic payments.

“We strive to make it easy for you to utilize these payment types instead of checks,” Snow said.