Security News > 2020 > August > Business Email Compromise – fighting back with machine learning
DEF CON is perhaps the ultimate "Come one/come all" hackers' convention, now in its 28th year, and it famously takes place in Las Vegas each year in a fascinating juxtaposition with Black Hat USA, a corporate cybersecurity event.
The DEF CON Villages are breakout zones at the event where where likeminded researchers gather to attend talks and discussions in research fields all the way from Aerospace, Application Security and AI to Social Engineering, Voting Machines and Wireless.
DEF CON doesn't give up easily and, like many other events in 2020, has gone virtual, wittily dubbing this year's event DEF CON 28 SAFE MODE. Safe Mode is the special, stripped-down mode you use when you boot up your operating system or your mobile phone with a minimal set of drivers and apps - ironically, a mode that is sometimes used by ransomware crooks so they get access to scramble all your files without the pesky problem of your security and system management software getting in the way.
Well, one reason is that there is a whole category of cybercrime known as BEC, short for Business Email Compromise, where crooks find a way to pass themselves off as someone important in your organisation such as the CEO or CFO, and send out emails giving false instructions.
Worse still, if the crooks have compromised the email account completely, they have access to the legitimate owner's own outbox, typically going back months or even years, so they can study the language, company jargon and style that the person would usually use in their own correspondence.