Business email compromise (BEC) scams have been on a steady
rise year over year and as per the suspicious activity reports (SARs) received
month since 2016, the count has now reached at a monthly average of more than
$300 million.
The Financial Crimes
Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the wake
of assembling the statistics about BEC episodes happening in the course of
recent years recognized the most common types of targets alongside the
destination planned for the stolen assets and the procedures utilized by the
scammers.
Companies have said to have lost around $1.2 billion to this
kind of cybercriminal movement, who's aim is to acquire assets by acting like a
customer or upper management personnel in a company so as to fool the key
individuals within the organization into wiring funds to an 'attacker-control
bank account'.
Commercial entities offering proficient services like landscaping, retail, restaurants, and
lodging turned out to be increasingly alluring targets, with 18% of the attacks
being aimed at them.
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| FinCEN's analysis describes the broader picture of BEC scams |
In contrast to financial organizations, which fell in the
rankings from 16% to 9%, real estate firms ended up being all the more
enticing, representing 16% of the BEC scam victim pie.
The attackers however don't stay adhered to only one way;
they have various strategies to accomplish their goal. From impersonating
company CEOs to impersonating customers and vendors all the while using fake
invoices they have done it all.
Therefore users are recommended to pay special mind to any
Malwares or Spywares as the attackers rely heavily on malware intended to steal
the necessary information for executing the attack just as Spyware for stealing
the information important to break into email accounts.
