Sports · 2018
S.S. Lazio's reported €2M payment diversion
€2M paid to the wrong Feyenoord.
What happened
In 2018, Lazio reportedly received an email that appeared to come from Feyenoord about the final installment for defender Stefan de Vrij. The message referred to a genuine debt and supplied replacement bank details. Lazio transferred about €2M, but Feyenoord said it never sent the instruction and never received the money.
The attackers made the instruction credible with Feyenoord's branding, a real debt, transaction knowledge and a Dutch bank account. Lazio's finance team trusted the email and did not confirm the new banking details through a separate channel. The money reached an account that did not belong to Feyenoord, and a later sports-arbitration decision required Lazio to pay the club more than €1M.
What would have changed it
Email is not enough to approve new banking details. We combine mail protection with a mandatory out-of-band verification step for sensitive payments.