Image: smolaw11 via AdobeStock - stock.adobe.com

It follows news from Hong Kong police in February that a worker at a then-unnamed company had been tricked by people posing as 鈥渟enior officers of the company鈥� in a video call.

They were persuaded during what appeared to the employee to be a genuine company video conference to make a series of transactions to designated bank accounts.

In a statement issued to Construction Briefing, Arup said, 鈥淏ack in January, we notified the police about an incident of fraud in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, we can鈥檛 go into details at this stage as the incident is still the subject of an ongoing investigation. 

鈥淥ur financial stability and business operations were not affected and none of our internal systems were compromised.鈥�

Arup鈥檚 global chief information office Rob Greig added, 鈥淟ike many other businesses around the globe, our operations are subject to regular attacks, including invoice fraud, phishing scams, WhatsApp voice spoofing and deepfakes. What we have seen is that the number and sophistication of these attacks has been rising sharply in recent months.

鈥淭his is an industry, business, and social issue, and I hope our experience can help raise awareness of the increasing sophistication and evolving techniques of bad actors.鈥�