skip to Main Content
Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post

Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 11 June 2024

Faith-Based Security Headlines

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.

Massive parish theft calls for more internal control, expert says

The Pillar reports that a Florida woman pled guilty to embezzling $775,000 from a Catholic parish.

In the article, Robert Warren, a retired IRS investigator and professor of accounting at Radford University recommended the following safeguards.

  • Preventive Controls
    • Separation of duties – including several people in financial transactions and record-keeping
  • Detection Controls
    • Reconciling bank accounts
    • Taking an inventory of assets

In April, The Pillar reported Florida woman facing trial for $700k parish theft, which involved a different woman at a different church.

Related Item from the IRS:

Analyst Comments:

As the above items indicate, Faith-Based Organizations (FBO) are often victims of embezzlement. FBOs should consider implementing, or improving, preventive and detection controls.

FB-ISAO’s  11 March 2024 Daily Awareness Post (DAP) highlighted an embezzlement story where a California church administrator stole $350,000.

The DAP provided Smart Church Management’s 10 Practices That Safeguard Your Church Against Embezzlement – Smart Church Management.

The DAP also provided the Church Mutual’s Preventing Fraud And Embezzlement pdf.

More Security-focused Content

Read more about the 2023 Threat Data and what the data tells us about the threat landscape.
Read the March 2024 Threat Level Statement Update
Access all-hazards resources from public and private sector partners, curated by the FB-ISAO team.

The FB-ISAO’s sponsor Gate 15 publishes a free daily newsletter called the SUN. Curated from their open source intelligence collection process, the SUN informs leaders and analysts with the critical news of the day and provides a holistic look at the current global, all-hazards threat environment. Ahead of the daily news cycle, the SUN allows current situational awareness into the topics that will impact your organization. To sign-up for The SUN, please sign up below.

Back To Top
Show Buttons
Hide Buttons