Business email scams steal $2.3 billion via rogue wire transfers
Over the past two and a half years, cybercriminals have managed to steal over $2.3 billion from thousands of companies worldwide by using little more than carefully crafted scam emails.
Known as business email compromise (BEC), CEO fraud or whaling, this type of attack involves criminals impersonating an organization's chief executive officer, or some other high-ranking manager, and instructing employees via email to initiate rogue wire transfers.
According to an alert issued earlier this week by the FBI, between October 2013 and February 2016, 17,642 organizations from the U.S. and 79 other countries have fallen victim to BEC attacks. The combined losses amount to over $2.3 billion, the agency said.
