Business Email Compromise

LexisNexis (March 24, 2020, 10:16 AM EDT) -- As banks and customers have been putting more tools in place to address corporate account takeover, another threat has been developing—so-called “business email compromise” or BEC. According to an April 4, 2016 press release from the FBI’s Phoenix Field Office, BEC involves fraudsters who are able to spoof a company’s email or use social engineering to assume the identity of a high-level company officer. Once they have done that, they then send an email that looks like it is from that high-level company officer to one of the company’s employees who has the ability to initiate wire transfers. That email will request that employee to initiate a wire transfer and will often have an explanation of why the request needs to be treated in a confidential manner. The employee dutifully initiates the wire transfer and the money is gone....