Traditionally, BEC attacks have used keyloggers to steal saved account information from target machines. However, using an executable file for the attachment usually flags a user not to click them as there is a high chance that the file is malicious. As a result, we’ve seen a trend wherein the attached files are no longer executable files but HTML pages.
Read More A series of Business Email Compromise (BEC) campaigns that used CEO fraud schemes was seen targeting 17 healthcare institutions in the US, ten in the UK, and eight in Canada over the past two weeks. These institutions range from general hospitals and teaching hospitals to specialty care and walk-in clinics. Even pharmaceutical companies were not safe from the BEC scams, as one UK-based company and two Canadian pharma companies were also targeted.
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Emails have become the battleground for the first half of the year in terms of security. It is the number one infection vector that have ushered in 2016’s biggest threats so far—ransomware and business email compromise (BEC). Ransomware infections normally start via email. Based on our findings, 71% of the known ransomware families’ delivery method is through spam.
Looking at the threat trends so far, both ransomware and BEC have proved profitable across the world. This echoes our prediction that 2016 would be the Year of Online Extortion. Ransomware continues to threaten business-critical data and cost organization thousands of dollars in losses; BEC scams bank on social engineering lures that lead even companies’ top decision-makers to transfer huge sums of money—totaling to over US$3 billion in estimated losses.
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Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks have proven to be an effective tactic, with criminals stealing large amounts of money from various businesses. From 2013 to 2015, BEC-related damages were estimated at US$ 2.3 billion. Targeting C-level executives has proven to be a very successful tactic, with multiple companies falling victim to this kind of scam.
The operators behind these scams operate from countries where they believe they are safe from law enforcement. Bringing down these syndicates is no easy task: law enforcement agencies and researchers need to work across borders, with differing laws coming into play.
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It should not come as a surprise that company executives (particularly the CEO and President) and other revered high-level employees get to be impersonated often for criminal reasons. How can you say no when it’s the CEO asking? How can you not comply when it’s already the President specifically requesting? Gone are the days of the telltale signs of an email scam: glaring grammatical errors and outlandish stories about lottery winnings or royalty riches. Today, Business Email Compromise (BEC) scammers use this regard of authority to target internal employees who may deal with and handle the finance of the company: the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs).
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