Attackers can abuse trusted vendor and client relationships to request payments, sensitive documents, or account changes. Learn how clear verification steps, MFA, and email security can help protect your business.
Your business depends on trusted relationships with vendors and clients. You send invoices, approve payments, respond to emails, make decisions based on who you believe is on the other side of the conversation.
Unfortunately, attackers know that many businesses move quickly, trust familiar names, and do not always stop to verify unusual requests.
Vendor and client impersonation scams are designed to make a fake request look legitimate. The request may come through email, phone calls, text messages, fake invoices, or even AI-generated voice and video. The goal is usually simple: convince someone to send money to a new account, share sensitive information, or skip a normal security process.
The danger is not only in technology, but in how easily a business can be pressured into acting without a clear way to verify sensitive requests.
How Vendor and Client Impersonation Scams Work
A common version of this scam starts with a message that appears to come from someone your business already knows. It may look like it came from a vendor, client, employee, bookkeeper, executive, or business partner.
The message may say something like:
“Hey, we’re having issues with our ACH account right now. Can you send this payment to the updated account below?”
Or:
“Can you send that document to this email instead? Our company email is having issues.”
At first glance, the request may not seem suspicious. The name looks familiar. The email signature looks right. The invoice may use the correct logo. The tone may sound normal. In some cases, the attacker may have researched your business, your employees, your vendors, or your clients before making contact.
This is why impersonation scams can be so effective. They do not always rely on malware or obvious hacking. Sometimes the attacker is simply trying to get a trusted person inside the business to take one wrong action.
The request usually involves urgency, money, or sensitive information. The attacker wants the employee to move quickly before anyone asks questions. That pressure is part of the scam.
If your business handles invoices, ACH payments, wire transfers, client documents, contracts, tax forms, or sensitive account information, this type of attack matters.
AI Voice and Deepfake Risks
Voice phishing, also known as vishing, is when an attacker uses a phone call to trick someone into sharing information or taking an action they normally would not take. This type of scam has existed for years, but AI tools can make it more convincing.
Attackers may use audio from social media videos, recorded calls, voicemail greetings, or online meetings to imitate someone’s voice. Deepfakes create a similar risk by using AI-generated or AI-manipulated audio, images, or video to make it appear as if a real person said or did something they did not actually say or do.
In a business setting, this could look like a fake voicemail from an executive, a video call that appears to show a familiar contact, or an audio message that sounds like a vendor requesting a payment change.
Trying to spot every fake voice or video is not a reliable security strategy. Employees should not be expected to become deepfake experts. Instead, your business needs a verification process that works even when the message, voice, email, or video appears legitimate.
A Better Verification Process
Trust is important, but it should not replace verification when money, account access, or sensitive information is involved.
The most important rule is simple: do not approve sensitive changes based only on the message that requested the change.
Any request involving banking information, wire transfers, ACH details, new vendor accounts, sensitive documents, passwords, or unusual urgency should be verified through a separate trusted method. A familiar name, voice, email signature, invoice, or caller ID is no longer enough to approve a sensitive request.
Do not use the phone number, email address, or link included in the suspicious message. If the request is fake, that information may lead directly back to the attacker.
Instead, use contact information your business already has on file. Call the vendor or client using a known phone number from a prior contract, trusted contact list, vendor portal, previous legitimate invoice, or established business record.
A practical verification process should include:
• Callback verification using a known phone number already on file.
• Dual approval from management for payment changes, large transfers, new vendors, or sensitive account changes.
• A short waiting period before sending money to a newly changed account.
• Written documentation of who made the request, who verified it, what number or method was used, and when it was confirmed.
• A rule that payment changes are never approved based only on email, voicemail, caller ID, text message, or video appearance.
For higher-risk relationships, your business can also establish a verification phrase with key vendors or clients. This should not be a real password. It should not be sent through the same email or text conversation where the request is being made. It is simply an extra safety check used during a live verification call.
Your team should also be trained to slow down when a request feels rushed, unusual, secretive, or financially sensitive. A message that says “do this today,” “do not call,” or “I am unavailable but need this handled now” should be treated with caution.
Technical Controls Matter Too
A strong verification process is important, but it should not be your only defense. Businesses also need technical controls that reduce the chance of impersonation, account compromise, and email abuse.
Multifactor authentication should be enabled on email accounts, Microsoft 365 accounts, accounting platforms, remote access tools, cloud storage, and other important business systems. MFA helps reduce the chance that an attacker can log in with only a stolen password.
Email security is another important layer. Many impersonation attempts begin with email, especially when attackers try to make a message look like it came from your business, one of your vendors, or a trusted contact.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are email security records that help protect your domain from being misused. SPF helps show which systems are allowed to send email for your domain. DKIM helps prove that an email was approved by the sending domain and was not changed along the way. DMARC tells mail systems what to do when an email does not pass those checks.
Properly configured email authentication can reduce domain spoofing and give your business better visibility to who is sending email on behalf of your domain. It does not stop every impersonation attempt, but it is an important part of a layered defense.
Trust the relationship, but verify the change.
As technology changes, the way businesses protect themselves must change as well. The goal is not to make business harder. The goal is to make it harder for an attacker to use trust against you.
If your business is not sure whether its email security, vendor verification process, or Microsoft 365 settings are strong enough, SBN Solutions can help review your current setup and build practical protections that fit the way your business actually works.
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