International students attending private schools in the UK are being targeted by scammers trying to steal their tuition fees, a new study has found.
Some families have lost up to £10,000 after receiving fake emails from school administrators and being scammed into sending money into criminals’ bank accounts.
A survey of 100 fee-paying private schools found that all of them had been affected by attempted or successful cyberattacks. This happened on average once a year.
Attacks typically focus on diverting fee payments to the fraudster’s account. The average loss to fraud was £3,200, but there were losses of more than three times that amount, according to Iris Education, the software company that carried out the study.
Simon Freeman, director of Iris Education, said parents of international students are often the most vulnerable as English may not be their first language and they may miss warning signs of fraudulent emails.
Criminals often email parents offering a discount if they pay fees early, then provide them with their own banking details.
“If you have parents [for] English is easier for non-native speakers. [criminals] To replicate documents and convince parents that something that is not true is genuine,” Freeman said.
All 100 school staff members who participated in the study said they had been targeted. The average was five targets over five years.
“[Criminals are] It monitors school communications, hits fee deadlines, and replicates official payment instructions with incredible accuracy,” Freeman said.
“Many schools are doing everything right with existing processes, but these processes themselves have become vulnerabilities that criminals have been trained to exploit.”
what it looks like
The scam typically begins with a hack where criminals gain access to a parent’s email address. It could also be hacking an external company that has access. According to Freeman, in some cases, companies that manage visas for international students were targeted and their data was stolen.
Afterwards, an email supposedly from the bursar is sent to the parents asking them to pay into a different account than usual. This is usually done when semester fees are due (usually in March, September, December or thereabouts).
You can even offer discounts of up to 25% to parents to entice people. This is a common tactic used by criminals in various types of fraud.
Often, foreign students become prey, making them more profitable targets because they pay tuition and boarding fees.
Freeman said schools often have multiple ways to communicate with parents, including email, WhatsApp groups and phone calls, so hackers will try to find a weakness in one of the communication channels. Many schools accept a variety of payment methods, including bank transfers, checks, cash, debit cards, and credit cards, which criminals also try to exploit.
what to do
Parents should be wary of messages that are out of the ordinary or give the impression that payment is urgent. This may be a bill issued at a different time than when fees are normally expected to be paid.
If alarm bells are raised, parents are encouraged to contact the school through regular channels rather than the phone number or email address in the email they received and confirm that the request is genuine.
Anyone who believes they have been scammed should contact their bank immediately and report fraud, the central hub for reporting fraud and online crime.