Four months after the Florida Baptist Convention informed members that they were the “victim of a highly sophisticated cybercrime” that used fraudulent emails to steal $700,000 earmarked for their Send Network Florida account, an investigatory report concluded there was “no criminal activity on the part of any Florida Baptist Convention staff person” to account for the losses, but instead “the crime was the result of sophisticated cybertargeting by, at this point, unknown perpetrators.”
It’s a small consolation for the convention, which has been reeling from the loss. The report was delivered during their Aug. 24-25 meeting in Jacksonville.
While they are still making efforts to recover the funds, subcommittee members shared they are also implementing stronger protocols to prevent such a crime from occurring in the future, revealing that “the convention is exercising heightened awareness when carrying out financial duties, implementing ongoing training for convention staff, appropriate data security controls, and completing the process to become accredited by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
