Florida Baptist Convention Loses $700,000 After Being Attacked by ‘Sophisticated Financial Cyber Crime’
The Florida Baptist Convention has released a statement informing members that they were the “victim of a highly sophisticated cybercrime which used fraudulent emails” to reroute a payment of $700,000 from the convention to their Send Network Florida account, which is in partnership with the North American Mission Board.
We have reported this crime to the FBI, local law enforcement, our insurance carrier, our bank, and our auditing firm.
This fraud was accomplished with a general knowledge of the communications and practices between the SBC entity and the convention. An investigation is being launched to determine how this knowledge was gained. At this time, we have no reason to suspect malfeasance by any convention employees. Nevertheless, the convention is committed to fully investigating the matter.
Explaining that they “continue to work with federal and state investigators, our internal and external auditors to recover over $700,000 in funds stolen from the convention through cyber targeting,” they note that they are working to further reinforce their level of information technology security and are “prayerful that some of this loss may be mitigated through insurance and/or the recovery of stolen funds.”
It’s unfortunate that the stolen payments were taken from Send Network monies rather than payments allocated due to ERLC, as any donations given to the corrupt lobbying arm of the Southern Baptist Convention can be considered squandered and as good as stolen anyways.
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