As treasury, finance, and A/P employees across nearly everyindustry sector are working from home, and as U.S. governmentleaders consider their options for a fifth stimulus package tobolster the Covid-19 economy, fraud is an increasinglytop-of-mind concern.

A Deloitte poll of more than 1,200 C-suite executives foundthat:

• More than half of respondents (51 percent) expect the numberand size of fraud, waste, and abuse schemes perpetrated againsttheir organization to increase in the next 12 months. Only 3percent expect fraud to decrease.
• Nearly 40 percent expect those schemes to come in the form ofimproper payments, while 15 percent expect to experience morefinancial reporting and disclosure fraud, 15 percent anticipate anuptick in embezzlement, and 11 percent think they will see morecorruption and kickbacks over the next year.
• Perhaps most surprising, 28 percent of respondents expect thefraud to be perpetrated by current employees. Nearly 10 percentthink their current vendors will the source of the schemes, andanother 13 percent expect either former employees or former vendorsto initiate fraud. Only 24 percent are most afraid of the fraud,waste, and abuse risk posed by individuals with no employment orvendor ties to their company.

"Despite the heightened awareness of fraud, some executives maybe too confident in their ability to fight it," warns Don Fancher,global forensic leader for Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory.When companies fail to use security technologies that monitorcorporate transactions in an automated way, it is "hard to quicklyidentify and remediate issues, especially in today's environment,where bad actors may be more inclined to take advantage of variousbusiness-aid packages or vulnerabilities in organizations'systems," Fancher adds.

 See also:

• Combating CARES Act Fraud
• Remote Work Presents Risks to Proprietary Information
• 5 Steps to Protect Your Business Amid Economic Uncertainty