Flashpoint, the global leader in Business Risk Intelligence (BRI), today announced that Senior Malware Analyst Ronnie Tokazowski has accepted the prestigious JD Falk Award from the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG), on behalf of the Business Email Compromise (BEC) Working Group. The award recognises people who are committed to making a better online world, and Tokazowski is being honoured for creating this group in 2015. Since then, the group has helped stop millions of dollars in wire transfers, taken down thousands of romance accounts and contributed to well over 100 arrests.
Created in honour of a spam fighter who had a huge impact in the industry, the JD Falk Award seeks to recognise a specific and impactful item of work. It also requires the individual to embody the spirit of JD’s volunteerism and community building.
“One of the greatest things about working on BEC over the last three years is the amount of collaboration that has happened across the industry, not just from the private sector but also including the public sector,” Tokazowski said. “BEC is the largest financial threat plaguing our industry, and while it’s often portrayed that the only loss is money, thousands of lives have been devastated by romance, real estate and other types of related fraud.”
According to the Internet Crime and Complaint Centre (IC3), BEC is a crime that has been reported in all 50 U.S. states and 150 countries. More than 75 percent of the countries in the world have reported BEC or related fraud, netting criminals more than $12 Billion globally. Formed in late 2015, the BEC Working Group today comprises more than 530 people globally, from both public and private sectors. The community at its core has built a rich and trusted platform for information sharing, devoid of any commercial agendas or influences. Its membership boasts some of the industry’s most prominent companies and researchers, as well as the FBI, IRS, and the United States Secret Service Global Investigative Operations Centre.
The following organisations participated in the BEC Working Group:
· Agari
· AlienVault
· Apura Cybersecurity Intelligence
· Area 1 Security
· Booz Allen Managed Threat Services
· CrowdStrike
· Cofense, previously PhishMe
· Comp.romiser
· CyberNotify.org
· Dell SecureWorks
· Duke University
· FBI, with special thanks to LA, NY, NCFTA, HQ, and several other field offices
· Fishtech
· Flashpoint
· Gigamon
· Internal Revenue Service / Online Fraud Detection & Prevention
· Iridium Satellite
· Itochu Corp
· Oath
· One Medical
· Orange Cyberdefense
· Palo Alto Networks, Unit 42
· Proofpoint
· Salesforce
· Scam Haters United
· ShadowDragon
· Sophos Plc.
· SpyCloud, Inc.
· Sucuri / GoDaddy
· Symantec
· ThreatStop, INC
· Trend Micro, Inc
· Trustwave
· United States Secret Service global investigative operations centre
· Walmart
“BEC continues to be a strong and thriving criminal enterprise,” said Josh Lefkowitz, co-founder and CEO, Flashpoint. “The ability for criminals to continue to adapt methods and evade detection requires a collaborative effort and robust information sharing between industry researchers and law enforcement. We at Flashpoint applaud Ronnie’s work in this area, as well as the phenomenal collaboration the BEC Working Group has achieved.”
About Flashpoint
Flashpoint delivers Business Risk Intelligence (BRI) to empower organisations worldwide with meaningful intelligence and information that combats threats and adversaries. The company’s sophisticated technology, advanced data collections, and human-powered analysis uniquely enables large enterprises and the public sector to bolster cybersecurity, confront fraud, detect insider threats and build insider threat programs, enhance physical security, improve executive protection, and address vendor risk and supply chain integrity. Flashpoint is backed by Georgian Partners, Greycroft Partners, TechOperators, K2 Intelligence, Jump Capital, Leaders Fund, Bloomberg Beta, and Cisco Investments. For more information, visit https://www.flashpoint-intel.com/ or follow us on Twitter at @FlashpointIntel.
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