By Mandy Moody, ACFE Social Media Specialist
Some people come alive while steering a NASCAR or singing into a microphone. (Personally, I feel most comfortable sitting in front of a laptop posting and tweeting all day.) But for Cynthia Hetherington, president of Hetherington Group, the spotlight seems to shine brightest when she is teaching a crowded room of eager listeners how to navigate covertly through the elusive and ever-changing world of the Internet.
As one of the ACFE’s most popular faculty members, Hetherington uses examples from her own fraud investigations and years of online research to give CFEs and fraud examiners the vital tools needed to close the case on a fraudster by using social networks.
In her Pre-Conference session, “Effectively Using Social Networks and Social Media in Fraud Examinations,” Hetherington advised attendees on how to locate assets, uncover intelligence and find free resources for conducting due diligence and background investigations on the Internet - all effective ways to expose a fraudster online. She explained how to deconstruct a profile for an investigation and detailed safe ways to search social network profiles.
"You can use social networks and social media as a search tool," Hetherington said. "Use it as intelligence, not evidence, to help you profile a suspected fraudster."
While LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace may sound like slang to some, these three social networks are only a few of the sources available to fraud examiners searching for evidence of fraudulent activity. Packed into social networking sites and social profiles is a wealth of information regarding users’ personal lives, professional activities and, yes, even photos. According to Hetherington, searching social media sites, and even retail sites like Ebay, can give investigators background information that a suspect may have neglected or forgotten to mention.
"I hope attendees were able to take away at least 10 new open source sites that they can use,” Hethering said. “Once you learn how easy it is to backdoor your way through accounts and covertly search online, there are numerous ways to find fraudulent data and digital documentation.”
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