Overview

Finance teams are the single most valuable target for cyber-enabled fraud, because they hold the authority to move money. This practical, jargon-free course shows finance, accounts payable, treasury and payments staff how business email compromise, invoice fraud and payment diversion work, the verification controls that stop them, and how to respond fast if a payment is compromised. Four short units

Target Audience

Finance, accounts payable, treasury and payments staff. No technical background required.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion, learners will gain a full and clear understanding of:

• Why finance functions are targeted and how to distinguish business email compromise, invoice fraud and payment diversion
• The real mechanics of vendor email compromise and executive impersonation fraud, from named, dated cases
• How to apply verification controls including out-of-band checks, dual authorisation and Confirmation of Payee
• How to spot the red flags in a bank-detail change or urgent payment request before acting on it
• The right first steps to take within the critical window after a suspected fraudulent payment
• What UK reimbursement protections do, and don’t, cover for your organisation

Features and Benefits

• Written for complete beginners: practical, jargon-free and easy to follow.
• Current and fact-checked: researched against up-to-date 2026 sources, including the latest case studies and regulation.
• Four short, focused units with gated progression; each unit unlocks once the previous one is passed.
• Light, formative interactions running through every unit (click-to-reveal, quick knowledge checks and estimate-and-reveal sliders), never scored.
• An end-of-unit quiz that finishes with a marking screen showing which answers were right or wrong, with a short explanation for each.
• Easy retakes: a failed quiz drops the learner straight back into freshly shuffled questions, with no need to click through the unit again.
• Optional audio narration on every screen (the learner chooses to listen), plus narrated motion-graphic video introductions, with captions throughout for accessibility.
• Responsive layout, suitable for PC, tablet and mobile.
• SCORM 1.2 conformant (single SCO); reports completion and an averaged score to any compliant LMS.

Course Contents

Unit 1: Why Finance Teams Are the Target

• Why finance functions hold the authority that makes them the top target for cyber-enabled fraud
• Business email compromise, invoice fraud and payment diversion, defined and distinguished
• Vendor email compromise, the sharper and more dangerous variant
• Current US and UK figures on the scale of the problem, and what a successful attack really costs

Unit 2: How Payment Fraud Actually Works

• Two families of attack: inventing a fake vendor versus hijacking a real one
• A fake-vendor invoice scam that cost two major technology companies over $120 million
• Executive impersonation fraud and the exact red flags in the request itself
• Vendor email compromise and invoice thread hijacking, mechanically, through a real, documented case

Unit 3: Verification and Controls That Stop It

• Out-of-band verification, precisely defined, with a real callback script
• Exactly when verification is mandatory, without exception
• Dual authorisation (“maker-checker”), positive pay and the UK’s Confirmation of Payee
• Vendor onboarding done properly, and trusting a “something’s slightly off” instinct

Unit 4: Responding Fast and Recovering the Money

• The golden window: why speed decides whether a fraudulent payment can be recovered
• Your first move, and exactly what to say when you call your bank’s fraud team
• What UK reimbursement rules actually cover for a business, and what they don’t
• Reporting fast, preserving evidence, and a finance-team checklist that ties it all together