Field notes · 11 March 2026
Reading urgency in supplier payment requests
How social engineering resilience workshops teach staff to slow down when a supplier suddenly changes banking details.
Urgent supplier emails arrive every week in South African offices. Most are legitimate. A few borrow the same tone — delayed shipment, penalties, a director travelling — to push a banking change through before anyone calls the known number.
In our social engineering resilience workshops we ask participants to name the pressure cues they feel in their body: flushed cheeks, the urge to clear the inbox before lunch, fear of blocking a delivery. Naming the cue makes it easier to insert a pause.
A useful pause looks ordinary. Call the supplier on the number already on file. Ask a second person to read the request aloud. Refuse to use new contact details embedded in the same message that asks for the change.
Teams that rehearse this once in a room remember it longer than teams that only watch a slide about “verify everything.” The rehearsal is the point of the workshop, not the vocabulary list.