A recent study by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows that cybercrime continues to grow. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (often referred to as IC3) reported a 7% increase in internet crime from 2020 to 2021. In December 2021, BEC scam and spam messages made up 45.37 percent of all email traffic.
Business email compromise (BEC) scams have experienced an increase in the number of victims they have affected. In fact, the prospective damages from BEC schemes in 2021 alone were $2.4 billion.
Fortunately, companies must take action to stop BEC fraud. This introduction to BEC scams, and advice on what to do if your company is targeted being one of their victims.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What Are Business Email Compromise Scams?
Social engineering, which is tricking targets into thinking and acting in a certain way, includes scams employing business email compromise. Business email compromise scam attacks involve a fraudster impersonating a target’s reliable person, like the CEO of the target business.
Corporate email accounts are a must for scammers to access in order to be successful. These scams will occasionally “spoof” email addresses to make them seem real. However, no matter how the con artist carries out these attacks. They almost always rely on a false sense of urgency and an appeal to authority.
In a BEC scam type, a hacker can gain access to a company official’s email account. Send an urgent email to the accounting department. The email can request that money be sent immediately away to a different business partner by the company’s accountant.
How To Avoid Business Email Compromise Schemes?
Business email compromise scams can be challenging to stop because they typically prey on psychological weaknesses rather than technical flaws. This implies many technological safeguards against hackers gaining access to computers and other systems are ineffective against BEC schemes.
However, being a victim of a BEC scam statistics is not a given. BEC scams can be avoided by using several recommended practices to enhance cybersecurity. It only takes a few minutes to put some easy cybersecurity advice into practice to make a difference.
These are the tips for preventing BEC attacks for BEC frauds, which will protect your company:
Recognize The Threat
The first element of a successful defense is awareness of BEC attacks and methods. Never open a link in an email unless you are certain it will take you to a safe, legitimate website.
Inform Your Staff
Understanding BEC scam impact on businesses does not top executives or IT professionals. Even better, send them recurring phishing tests to check their recognition.
Bolster Your IT Division
Consider engaging the services of a dedicated cybersecurity professional or supporting IT personnel who are interested in cybersecurity education.
Protect Your Mail Boxes
Social engineering is an important part of business email compromise scam awareness campaigns. And the attacks can start with a fraudster seizing control of a target’s email account. Demand that each account has a different, secure password from your staff. You can also perform the BEC scam recovery by protecting the email accounts with safeguards like two-factor authentication. The FBI advises to enable notifications for foreign logins.
Restructure Your Payment Systems
The key component of BEC scams is convincing a single employee to send a wire transfer. By incorporating redundancies into the cash transfer process, you can reduce this risk. Create a payment approval policy, for instance, that requires second employee or executive to confirm and approve all money transfers.
Create A Backup Strategy
You need a plan in case a company falls victim to BEC tactics fraud despite taking all the measures. The particular actions should include who should notify the FBI and the financial institution in charge of your company’s finances. It is vital to create a BEC scam detection strategy.
What Lies Ahead For Business Email Fraud?
It is obvious from the FBI report’s data that business email scams are on the rise. Of course, this does not imply that your business will always be attacked. Businesses with BEC awareness have an advantage over any fraudsters who try to target them by putting measures in place.
You can decrease the effects of a successful attack on your business if you already have a reaction plan in place. For additional information on preventing and retaliating to cyberattacks, read our comprehensive small company guide to BEC assault prevention.
Summing It Up
Technical safeguards are a good tool for BEC scam prevention. A strong BEC with GoDMARC secures all the channels that attackers employ for their attacks and BEC scam prevention. User behavior, corporate email, business email, personal webmail, emails from business partners, and your website name are some of them.
FAQ’s
Q1. How do BEC frauds operate?
Business email compromise (BEC) is a cybercrime when a scammer uses an email to pressure a victim into providing money or confidential information. The offender poses as a trustworthy individual and then demands payment for a fake bill or personal information for fraud.
Q2. Whom do BEC scams aim to defraud?
Cybercriminals target companies that employ well-known cloud-based email systems to carry out BEC scams. “Business email compromise” or “email account compromise,” a sophisticated fraud, preys on businesses and individuals who legitimately request money transfers.
Q3. What does a BEC provide a potential attacker?
However, the EAC assault is BEC due to its interconnection. The attacker pays money to the hacked email account or obtains crucial information about the company using social engineering.
