After the City of Saskatoon’s announcement that it has been the victim of fraud, the City of Regina is looking at reviewing its own systems.

On Thursday, the City of Saskatoon announced it had been defrauded of $1.04 million thanks to a scam where someone called, pretending to be from one of the city’s contractors, and asked for a change of banking information. When the city tried to make a payment to the contractor, the fraudster got the money instead.

June Schultz, director of financial services with the City of Regina, said Friday that the city takes internal controls very seriously, and cybersecurity is one of its top priorities.

She explained the city has a combination of people, processes and technology to cut the risk of a cybersecurity breach or fraud taking place.

“As we’ve moved into the electronic era, we are looking at and continuing to evolve and ensuring that we have proper cybersecurity systems in place as well,” said Schultz.

She wouldn’t go into detail on the security systems the city has because she said that could compromise them.

Schultz did say that the city has a number of checks and balances that ensure there’s a separation of duties so a task would have to go through multiple people before it’s finished.

Schultz also said there is a team within the city whose job is to stay on top of the evolving cyber-threat trends.

No one is immune to fraud or cyber-threats, stressed Schultz. She said things are always changing.

“The amount is not something that is the worry, it’s are you looking at the security and the checks and balances and the pieces that are in place to mitigate a risk of any amount,” said Schultz.

She said the City of Regina gave staff training in the middle of June, but officials also have taken what happened to the City of Saskatoon as a reminder to employees to watch out.

“We are again looking at doing another review again on our processes and procedures just to take one more look again and make sure that we are safeguarding the assets of the city and protecting the public funds,” said Schultz.