Dear Meteoritical Society Members, I hope that you and yours are keeping healthy and safe during these uncertain and challenging times. I am writing today to provide a final update on the cyber-attack that targeted our Society almost exactly a year ago. In particular, I wanted to provide information on the status of our finances and actions that have been taken by the Meteoritical Society council to protect the society against such attacks in the future. As many of you may recollect, I sent an email in early April of last year to inform our members that the Meteoritical Society had been the target of an elaborate cyber-crime that resulted in the loss of some tens of thousands of dollars to one of our operating accounts. We determined immediately thereafter that all of our accounts were secure from further attack. I want to emphasize at this time that the Society remains in good financial standing despite the loss. I would also like to share with you that we have implemented a number of measures to ensure that our Society is protected against such attacks in the future. Specifically, the following are a few of the actions that we have taken during this past year: - We filed an official report with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center. As of the present date, there has been no update from the FBI on the status of this report. - Council voted to add a new article (Article 2.6) to the Society bylaws requiring the use of the Handbook for Officers in conducting all Society business. - This Handbook for Officers has been updated to include specific instructions that no funds can be transferred to any party at the direction of another officer; with the exception of recurring (routine) expenses that are explicitly listed in the Handbook, the only non-routine financial transactions that may be performed by the treasurer are those that have been voted on by the Council (of which the treasurer is a member). - The Handbook for Officers now specifies that Treasurer will notify the President and Secretary before performing any non-routine funds transfers. Finally, I will say that such cyber-attacks and phishing scams are getting more and more common, and are ever more sophisticated. As such, all of us need to be extremely careful if we receive any emails that appear to be from known persons (such as Society officers) and request funds or sensitive information – always check the originating email address and, if in doubt, please call the person who appears to be the sender of such an email. If any of our members have any specific questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. Best regards, Mini Wadhwa *Meenakshi Wadhwa* *President, The Meteoritical Society* *Director and Professor* *[image: A picture containing object Description automatically generated]* *https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/957644 <https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/957644>* *https://wadhwagroup.asu.edu/ <https://wadhwagroup.asu.edu/>* *https://sese.asu.edu/ <https://sese.asu.edu/>* -- Munir Humayun Secretary of the Meteoritical Society, Professor Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science & National High Magnetic Field Laboratory Florida State University 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive Tallahassee, FL 32310 FAX: (850) 644-0827 metsocsec@gmail.com (or cc. humayun@magnet.fsu.edu)