Cambodia's rice industry has come under attack in recent months from online criminals attempting to defraud buyers and disrupt exporters’ websites, industry insiders say.

The Alliance of Rice Producers & Exporters of Cambodia (ARPEC) has alerted its members to take extra security measures after several reports of fraudulent activity in the past few weeks, said deputy general secretary David Van.

“Hackers used sellers’ email and managers’ email addresses asking buyers to remit payment for specific invoices to different bank accounts,” Van said.

Golden Rice Cambodia, one of the country’s largest exporters, is reinforcing website security after being hacked.

“Yesterday, we were discussing with other exporters that they have been attacked too, so we decided together to alert our buyers through oryza.com,” said David Sok, vice-president at Golden Rice, referring to an industry publication on which the news first surfaced.