How should teams verify executive or vendor requests before approving them?

How to verify a request without relying on the request channel

Use a second channel that is already trusted inside your organisation, and verify the requester’s identity, authority, and the exact change before anyone acts. The important test is whether the request can be confirmed independently of the email thread, chat message, or voicemail that delivered it. If the answer is no, treat it as unverified until it is checked.

That verification step should be specific, not ceremonial. A caller may be real but still not authorised to approve a payment, reset an account, change banking details, or override a control. Teams should confirm the requester’s role, the business context, and the precise action being asked for, because fraud often succeeds by making a legitimate request look routine.

When requests involve third parties, the safest confirmation path is usually the vendor record your team already owns, not the contact information embedded in the request itself. A known callback number, a registered portal account, or an internal supplier directory is more reliable than a fresh number or email signature supplied in the same message. That is especially important when the request concerns invoices, bank details, access, or emergency changes.

What counts as a trustworthy approval path

A trustworthy approval path is one that preserves separation between the request and the verification. Dual approval, ticket-based approval with named approvers, and call-back verification to a pre-registered contact are all stronger than a single person replying “approved” in the same thread. The control works because it forces a decision to be checked against an independent source of truth.

For higher-risk requests, the approval path should also preserve evidence. Teams should be able to show who approved, how identity was verified, what was approved, and whether the approver had authority for that class of change. If those details are missing, the process is too weak to defend after a payment dispute, account compromise, or vendor fraud incident.

One useful discipline is to separate content verification from identity verification. A request can come from the right person but ask for the wrong thing, or from the wrong person while containing enough detail to sound plausible. Good approval paths require both checks: the person must be authentic, and the requested change must match the business need and the approved workflow.

Risk and Threat Considerations

Executive impersonation and vendor spoofing work because people often optimise for speed, hierarchy, or urgency. Attackers and fraudsters exploit that pressure by forging email, hijacking legitimate accounts, or using voice cloning and other social-engineering techniques to create a believable request that bypasses normal review.

Failure mechanism: The control fails when the organisation treats the communication channel as proof of legitimacy, or when staff approve based on familiarity, urgency, or apparent seniority instead of a separate verification step. Once a spoofed request is accepted, the attacker can redirect payments, alter bank details, reset access, or obtain an exception that bypasses other controls.

Impact: The result can be direct financial loss, unauthorised access, exposure of sensitive data, or a compromised supplier relationship. In some cases the first approved change becomes the foothold for a broader business email compromise or follow-on fraud against finance, IT, or procurement teams.

Practitioner Guidance

What to verify: Build the habit of checking three things every time, who is asking, what authority they have, and exactly what change is requested. If any one of those is unclear, stop and validate before approval.

Decision rule: If the request changes money movement, access, banking details, or a privileged workflow, require an independent callback or dual approval, even if the message appears to come from a senior leader or trusted supplier. Do not let urgency lower the verification bar.

What practitioners underestimate: The hardest failures are often not obvious phishing messages, but credible requests that arrive through a real mailbox or a familiar vendor relationship. Teams should assume that channel trust alone is insufficient whenever the request has financial, access, or operational consequences.

Practitioner takeaway: The safest approval process is the one that makes a forged request expensive to complete, because the requester must be verified outside the channel being abused.

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