Although they get less attention than massive ransomware attacks, Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams involve criminals hacking into email accounts, pretending to be someone they’re not and fooling victims into sending money where it doesn’t belong.
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s a crime that siphons untold billions from the economy but many people have never heard of it.
Almost every enterprise is vulnerable to BEC scams, from Fortune 500 companies to small towns. Even the U.S. State Department got duped into sending BEC scammers more than $200,000 in grant funds meant to help Tunisian farmers, court records show. BEC scammers use a variety of techniques to hack into legitimate business email accounts and trick employees to send wire payments or make purchases they shouldn’t. Targeted phishing emails are a common type of attack, but experts say the scammers have been quick to adopt new technologies, like “deep fake” audio generated by artificial intelligence to pretend to be executives at a company and fool subordinates into sending money.
The Justice Department has launched months-long operations in recent years that have netted hundreds of arrests worldwide. For years both BEC scams and ransomware attacks were treated largely as a law enforcement problem. That’s still true for BEC attacks, but ransomware is now a key national security concern after a series of disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure like the one last year against the biggest fuels pipeline in the U.S. that led to gas shortages along the East Coast.
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