What is Business Email Compromise and is My Business at Risk?

Did you know that 91% of cyberattacks begin with emails? According to the FBI, business email compromise (BEC) is one of the fastest growing and most financially damaging cyber crimes. BEC attacks can be financially devastating, the long term impacts can be worst. The reputational and legal damage can drive an organization out of business. 

What is BEC?

BEC, an acronym that stands for business email compromise, is a cybercrime whereby scammers assume the digital identity of a trusted persona to trick employees or customers into taking a desired action, such as making a payment or purchase, sharing data, or divulging sensitive information. 

Why is it so hard to prevent?

BEC attacks rely heavily on social engineering techniques, along with weak authentication credentials. As a result, these attacks are difficult to detect or prevent with traditional security tools or spam filtering. Preventing these attacks rely on humans catching these on not falling for the bait. And as the attackers get more sophisticated, it is harder to spot the attacks.

What are some commonly used examples of BEC?

INVOICE SCAMS
Attackers compromise a supplier’s or vendor’s email account and send altered invoices or payment instructions to customers. The altered
details direct payments to the attacker’s account, resulting in payments being diverted away from the legitimate vendor. These are some of the most successful scams because people are expecting invoices from their vendors and don't think twice when they receive them. We see this attack successfully executed frequently. 

EMPLOYEE PAYROLL MANIPULATION
Attackers pose as HR personnel and request changes to an employee’s direct deposit information. As a result, the employee’s salary is redirected to the attacker’s account. Again, this is a very commonly pulled off scam and we have seen it happen dozens of times. 

W-2 PHISHING
Attackers target HR departments during tax season, sending emails from the compromised company executive’s account requesting W-2 forms or other sensitive employee information. This data is then used for identity theft or tax fraud.

ADMIN ACCOUNT TAKE OVER
Attackers compromise the IT administrator’s account, who has full administrative access to the company’s Microsoft 365 account. They then are able to read and manipulate the emails of any other employee in the company and create more administrative users in order to maintain access.

How can we help you prevent BEC from happening to your organization? 

We possess advanced technology and specialized knowledge across various IT domains, including cybersecurity, enabling us to provide reliable solutions, proactive maintenance, and effective troubleshooting. Additionally, you get access to a team of professionals at a fraction of the
cost of building out your own security team, enabling you to concentrate on your core business. We offer 24/7 monitoring of your IT systems, ensuring issues are identified and addressed promptly. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and disruptions and reduces the risk of breaches and data loss, which are crucial for businesses like yours.

How we protect against BEC

We have a powerful managed detection and response (MDR) solution included in our security services that secures your cloud identities and applications from BEC scams. By detecting and responding to suspicious user activity, permission changes, and anomalous access behavior, and backed by a 24/7 monitoring, our solution empowers us to fight back against attackers on your behalf, with no gaps or lags in coverage during the peak seasons, off hours, or holidays.

If you want to know more about how we can protect your business from business email compromise and other types of cyber attacks, schedule a call with us.