A minion in accounting receives an email from the chief executive requesting transfer of funds to a company – and it needs to be done yesterday, or there will be dire consequences. The chief executive is uncontactable, and it seems legitimate – what does said minion do? Well, usually they will raise the matter with their boss who coincidentally has received a copy of the request, so consider it done. Symantec calls this the business email compromise (BEC) and according to recent FBI reports more than US$43 billion has been lost in the past three years by 22,000 known victims. Symantec says its email security cloud data shows that over 400 businesses are being hit by BEC scams daily and of that 38% are affecting small or medium enterprises while the remainder are larger with finance, technology, healthcare, energy, and retail the top five targets.
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ORIGINAL SOURCE: IT Wire
