As if coronavirus hasn't put enough of a damper on vacation schedules this spring, corporate employees taking time off might want to rethink their "out of office" email settings for fear a different threat: Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams.Sure, the temptation to share humorous details about your big spring adventure can be irresistible for a certain species of corporate denizen (especially...

Unique BEC Approach May Be a Sign of Things to Come in the Age of COVID-19Amid a sharp rise in coronavirus-related phishing attacks worldwide, Fortra identified what may be the first documented use of the pandemic as a lure in an emerging breed of business email compromise (BEC) scams that can fleece businesses out of millions.In January, we published a post about an email crime ring code named...

The legal sector is learning some painful lessons about the growing threat phishing and business email compromise (BEC) scams pose to legal firms' brand reputations—and to their bottom lines.Just ask the five US law offices believed to be hit in recent weeks by email attacks that led to sensitive client information getting posted online in million-dollar extortion schemes fueled by Maze ransomware...

Cybercriminal organizations keep raking in big profits from BEC scams, phishing attacks, and other advanced email threats that continue to prove successful, according to the FBI's new 2019 Internet Crimes Report.Issued this past week, the annual report from the bureau's Crime Complaint Center (IC3) finds US businesses and individuals lost $3.5 billion to cybercriminals in a record 467,361 scams...

Business email compromise (BEC) has become the predominant cyber threat businesses face today. These basic social engineering scams are having a huge impact, to the tune of more than $700 million every month. To make matters worse, the recently-released Internet Crime Report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center shows that BEC isn’t going away any time soon, as losses from BEC attacks...

Business Email Compromise (BEC) was solely responsible for over 40% of the total cybercrime losses in 2019, at least according to the latest FBI IC3 report. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has released its latest Internet Crime Report with data on cybercrime impact in 2019. Corporate data breaches, which lead to leaked databases, documents, and bad press coverage for the company,...

Hint: DMARC Alone Won't Cut It Think the prospect of cybercriminals using your domains to launch phishing attacks sounds bad for your brand? Just wait until you hear the latest on lookalike domains. Over the last few months, researchers have been discovering a troubling number of phishing sites that feature domains meant to impersonate leading brands in a variety of industries. Sometimes...

Thanks to the rapid rise of email account takeovers, organizations worldwide are being forced to accept a painful new reality in the battle against phishing and business email compromise (BEC) scams. It's no longer enough to focus on your own attack surface. You need to protect against compromised accounts throughout the supply chain. Commonly referred to as vendor email compromise (VEC), this...

With the season for W2 scams upon us, rapidly evolving email threats suggests these and other business email compromise (BEC) attacks targeting corporate financial departments may be about to go from bad to worse.Each January, US-based businesses begin distributing W2 forms to employees, documenting earnings, tax withholding, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive information that must be...

Don't be surprised if heightened tensions with Iran, China and Russia push email security to the top of every CISO's agenda this year—including those in the transportation industry.It's well known that the threat posed by phishing in the transportation sector has surged over the last year. But now, an email attack leading to the theft of radioactive materials from a cargo ship, a serious train...

A growing body of evidence suggests employees throughout the healthcare sector may be uniquely vulnerable to phishing attacks. If finding itself a growing target for cybercriminals weren’t bad enough, the industry is also seeing associated lawsuits piling up.Montana-based Kalispell Regional Healthcare was recently hit with a suit after it disclosed that multiple employees had fallen victim to...

Back in July, we wrote about an emerging trend we have observed that involves attackers requesting aging reports from Business Email Compromise (BEC) targets. As we discussed in that post, aging reports are used by finance teams to track unpaid customer invoices. These reports are integral in the accounts receivable realm to maintain visibility into a supplier’s payment collection process. Aging...

As 2020 gets underway, business email compromise (BEC) scams and phishing attacks are expected to get a whole lot worse. But today, a new form of expert-curated BEC intel promises to help organizations stay ahead of emerging attacks like never before possible.Businesses can use all the help they can get. With more than $8.6 billion lost to BEC and variants such as vendor email compromise (VEC) in...

Can an email authentication protocol known as DMARC protect freight and package carriers from brand impersonation attacks targeting their customers?Stop me if this sounds familiar: Your customers are scrolling through email and come across a message from your company asking for details to straighten out a delivery snafu. They follow the link, update their info, and move on to their next task. But...

Spoiler alert: When it comes to email security and the fight against business email compromise (BEC) scams, phishing attacks, and other advanced email threats, 2020 won't be a cakewalk. Then again, neither was 2019. Whether it was ransomware, time-bombed email attacks that activate post-delivery, or the $700 million-a-month losses faced by businesses pummeled by surging BEC attacks, the past year...

As important as Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) is to the fight against Business Email Compromise (BEC) and other advanced email threats, it's really just the first piece of the email security puzzle. And it certainly won't cut it alone.Don't get me wrong. We've talked a lot about just how vital DMARC is to stopping email-based impersonation attacks. When...

The Wall Street Journal's report that a dozen US-based utilities were targets in a recent wave of coordinated phishing attacks should set off alarm bells throughout the sector and beyond. Energy producers and utilities don't just keep the lights on. They play a unique role in a country's critical infrastructure, encompassing economic health, public safety, and national security—making them...

Over the last four years, the information security community has learned a lot about business email compromise (BEC) and the inner workings of Nigerian cybercrime rings who have made it their mainstay. We know BEC fraud has been reported in all 50 states and in 177 countries worldwide. We know that since June 2016, over $26 billion has been lost as a result of BEC. But we also know that even at...

Time is running out to join industry thought leaders as a featured speaker at Trust 2020, The Next Generation Email Security Conference, on April 15-17 in Los Angeles. The deadline to submit topics for consideration is October 31, 2019. Trust 2020 is an exclusive, two-day customer event where senior security leaders from a wide range of industries converge to share thought-provoking ideas and...

Imagine going to the doctor and only being able to say “pain” or “sick”. You can’t say where you feel the pain, or what type of pain, or what is making you sick. Without this information, it is nearly impossible for the doctor to know how to treat you. From a cybersecurity perspective, this is very much like calling every email attack a “phishing attack" or even a “hack”. It limits the ability to...