New payment details
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Invoice Fraud Awareness
How to Recognize and Report Invoice Fraud
Invoice fraud uses a false, altered, or misdirected invoice or payment request to persuade an organization to send money or disclose financial information.
Use this guide to turn the threat into a clear employee decision, a safe practice scenario, and a reporting step your organization can support.
Plain-English definition • Warning signs • Safe simulation ideas • Reporting practice
01Understand the threat
Invoice Fraud: a practical definition
Invoice fraud uses a false, altered, or misdirected invoice or payment request to persuade an organization to send money or disclose financial information.
The message can come from an impersonated supplier, a lookalike address, or a compromised account. The strongest learning objective is the payment-verification process, not merely spotting a typo.
Source: CISA Phishing Guidance
02Recognition clues
Warning signs employees can check in a invoice fraud message
No single clue proves that a message is malicious. Teach employees to combine the request, sender, business context, destination, and available verification route before acting.
Pressure or incentive
The message adds an urgent deadline, late-payment threat, or unexpected discount for acting quickly.
Workflow mismatch
The invoice bypasses the purchasing system, expected approver, purchase order, supplier contact, or normal delivery channel.
03Safe response
Move from suspicion to a supported next step
| Moment | Employee action | Program preparation |
|---|---|---|
| Before acting | Match the invoice to the approved purchasing record and confirm new or changed details through the supplier contact and approval route already on file. | Publish the authentic contact, application, or reporting route somewhere employees can reach without using the message. |
| When uncertain | Pause the request and report it through the approved channel with enough context for review. | Explain what the response team needs and how employees will know that their report was received. |
| After an interaction | Stop, contact the responsible team promptly, and describe the action taken without hiding the mistake. | Provide a well-known response route and avoid communications that discourage early reporting. |
Source: NIST: Recognizing, verifying, and reporting phishing
04Practice safely
Invoice Fraud simulation and discussion ideas
Choose one learning objective per exercise. Use fictional people, organizations, accounts, payments, documents, and events, and test the reporting route before sending to employees.
Bank-detail change
Use a fictional supplier and account to practice the callback and two-person approval process.
Duplicate invoice
Ask employees to reconcile an invented repeated invoice against the known purchasing system.
Early-payment offer
Practice pausing an unexpected discount request until supplier identity and approval are independently confirmed.
05Campaign workflow
Build the exercise around a decision employees can repeat
- 1
Define the behavior
Write down the invoice fraud clue being practiced, the expected action, the authorized audience, and the owner of follow-up.
- 2
Confirm the real process
Test the independent verification route, message-reporting option, response handoff, and employee support path from a representative account.
- 3
Pilot the scenario
Check delivery, links, landing content, accessibility, event records, automated inspection, stop conditions, and the explanation employees will receive.
- 4
Review in context
Reconcile intended recipients, successful deliveries, unique employee events, verified reports, response handling, and completed follow-up before drawing conclusions.
Source: NIST SP 800-50 Rev. 1: Building a Cybersecurity and Privacy Learning Program
06Useful measurement
Evaluate recognition, reporting, and the surrounding process
Record actual counts and denominators for delivery, unique recipient events, reports, and follow-up. Separate automated email inspection and repeat events where the available evidence supports doing so.
A invoice fraud exercise samples one scenario under one set of conditions. It does not establish an employee's intent, overall security awareness, or likelihood of responding the same way to a real attack.
Use findings to improve the real workflow: clearer verification instructions, easier reporting, faster response handling, better role-specific training, or a business control that reduces reliance on email alone.
Common questions
Common questions about Phishmake's features, onboarding, and support, answered to help you get started with confidence.
Who should receive invoice-fraud training?
Include people who create, approve, change, or pay supplier records and invoices, plus employees who may forward financial messages into those workflows.
Is checking the sender address enough?
No. A real supplier account can be compromised. Consequential changes should follow the established purchasing, callback, and approval process regardless of how authentic the message appears.
Can invoice fraud be used in a phishing simulation?
It can be practiced when the scenario is authorized, proportionate, and tied to a real reporting or verification process. Use fictional suppliers, invoices, purchase orders, accounts, and amounts. Do not send an exercise into a live accounts-payable queue or change production payment data.
How should invoice fraud simulation results be measured?
Review successful delivery, unique employee events, reports, response handling, and completed follow-up. Include scenario difficulty and operating context, and do not treat a click or report as a complete measure of employee risk.
Sources & further reading
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Turn invoice fraud awareness into a repeatable response.
Use Phishmake to run controlled employee simulations, review campaign activity, assign relevant training, and keep follow-up records in one workflow.