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April 06 2011
Condé Nast or Conned Nast? Man Reels in $8M From Publisher With Single Phishy Email
“Phishing” is the word used for the now-ubiquitous scams that try to pry money and personal information out of anybody being careless online. “Spear-phishing” is the term used for the more artful and dangerous practice of directed scams—the kind that can steal $8 million with a single email. Which is exactly what happened recently to magazine publisher Condé Nast.
It all started with an email last November from a man allegedly named Andy Surface to the accounts payable department of Condé Nast, which publishes Wired, Vogue, and many other popular magazines. The email provided a bank account number and asked Condé Nast to send its printing payments to the new account from now on. Because this new account was for Quad Graph, and Condé Nast’s printer is a company called Quad/Graphics, everything looked legitimate, which is why a company employee signed the request and began funneling payments.
By late December, the publishing company had payed Surface $8 million. But on December 30, the real Quad/Graphics asked Condé Nast why they hadn’t been paid since mid-November. So the company scrambled to reverse a $36,000 payment it was about to send ...
