Introduction

Now, I’ve been at this long enough to see trends and threats grip the security world—once upon a time securing a network, then stopping a worm [Slammer] and so on… Now? It’s because of the human aspect of things. Because no matter how good your firewalls, IDS, or zero-trust policies are, human error can’t be patched. And that precisely is what attackers are exploiting currently in the NBFC sector.

Quick Take

• Phishing & Social Engineering attacks on NBFCs
• Attackers impersonate trusted organisations — vendors, employees, even regulators.
• Tech solutions won’t save you if employees aren’t trained. User awareness is your first (and often final) line of defense.
• Well-trained people still make mistakes—so your security stack better have multiple layers.
• Real-world phishing simulation: “Use simulated attacks to learn — if you aren’t doing it, you’re doing it wrong.”

Okay, now let’s get into it.

Widespread Phishing Scams Targeting NBFCs

Here’s the thing: NBFCs process critical financial data, but their security posture isn’t always hardened like banks. That makes them ideal targets.

Some scammers use laughably simple but effective phishing tactics:

• Fake RBI Emails (Regulation-based Scams): An employee receives an email seemingly from the Reserve Bank of India—shows up as legit, the urgent message contains a request that they check to ensure compliance with a new regulation. Click the link, submit credentials and bam—credentials stolen.
• Vendor Invoice Scams: An attacker impersonating a familiar vendor sends a phony invoice and requests a quick wire transfer. If accounting is not trained to verify each transfer—money’s gone.
• Spear Phishing on Executives: Senior executives are the targets of emails impersonating colleagues asking them to approve policies or gain access to data. Big bosses don’t always abide by security protocols—and attackers know it.
• WhatsApp & SMS Phishing: Employees trust WhatsApp for work (mistake 1), and so do attackers. From SMS/WhatsApp, fake compliance alerts, meeting requests, or threats of legal action. Click here to avoid penalties—standard fear tactic, and they fall for it.

Actual Cases (Because This is Happening Right Now)

“I have recently performed security audits of three NBFCs and it was scary,” he says.

Case #1: The CEO Wire Transfer Attack

A CFO of an NBFC got an email from his CEO about an urgent wire transfer of ₹50 lakh to a consultant’s account. Email seemed real (including signature and normal writing). Fortunately, they already had a process—calls were required to verify any big transfer. That extra step saved them.

Lesson: Always confirm high-risk transactions with supplemental authentication—not via email.

Case #2: The IT Support Scam

An IT admin at a mid-sized NBFC received a mail that looked like an email from their own helpdesk, claiming that their VPN credentials have expired. New-university, we clicked the link, filled out the details, and wanted to give the attacker remote access. Within 20 minutes, the access had been abused to begin exfiltrating internal documents from the company.

Lesson: IT staff are good targets for attack. These types of phishing attacks don’t exclusively target the finance sector.

Case #3: A WhatsApp Phishing Attack in Action

An employee received a WhatsApp from an unknown number, purportedly from their HR team, asking them to update their bank account for payroll processing. The employee complied with that request, because sometimes that was actually how “HR” in general spoke internally. Within an hour, their pay was drained into an attacker’s account.

Lesson: There should be standardized, verifiable channels of official company communication. No exceptions.

The Imperative for Employee Training

You could have the best firewalls and endpoint security and AI-driven email filtering (don’t get me started on AI-influenced security tech) but if an employee saves a booby-trapped attachment, none of that means a thing. These are some of the things that effective training programs have:

• Regular: A one-off security seminar isn’t going to do the trick. Cybersecurity threats continue evolving.
• Realistic: Generic training videos won’t help employees when they’re confronted with real attacks. They must view the specific types of phishing emails they may realistically receive.
• Hands-on: Run simulated phishing attacks on your employees themselves (no kidding—train by tricking).
• Role-specific: Accounts team risk differs from IT staff. Training should be tailored.
• Evaluated: It’s not about blame, but hopefully about security awareness.

Awareness Campaigns — Because Training Is Just Not Enough

Today’s well-trained employee still makes an error tomorrow. The human mind is not a firewall — it forgets. That’s why awareness campaigns have to be:

• Ongoing: Posters in offices, security reminders on Slack/Teams, results of weekly phishing test—make sure it is top of mind.
• Gamified: Learning is more fun—leaderboards, challenges, small incentives (it’s true, security competitions work) and employees are engaged.
• Visible at the C-Level: If senior leadership views phishing as merely an IT problem, everyone else will feel that way, too. Leadership has to demonstrate that they take security seriously.

Conclusion (And a Bit of Ranting About Passwords)

Look, I get it. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that no one likes security policies. Security is often seen as a hassle, and employees want convenience. But phishing preys on convenience. If it is too easy to reset passwords, authorize transfers, or access company data remotely — you are making it easy for attackers.

• Use unique passwords across different systems.
• 2FA isn’t optional anymore. If you are not enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA) on critical services, you’re playing with fire.
• Zero-trust is not just a buzzword. Assume breach. Verify everything.

TL;DR

NBFC employees are being targeted by phishing attacks, and tech solutions are not going to resolve it. If you don’t have:

• Ongoing employee training
• Simulated phishing tests
• A culture of shared responsibility for security

…you’re vulnerable. And trust me — you don’t want to do incident response on Monday morning before you have had your first cup of coffee.

Stay safe. Stay paranoid. And train your people.