Security News > 2020 > September > BEC Wire Transfers Average $80K Per Attack

The average wire-transfer loss from business email compromise attacks is significantly on the rise: In the second quarter of 2020 the average was $80,183, up from $54,000 in the first quarter.

That's according to the recently released Anti-Phishing Working Group's Phishing Activity Trends Report [PDF], which pointed out that the rise in dollar amounts could be driven largely by one Russian BEC operation, which has been targeting companies for an average of $1.27 million per effort.

"The pretext of their attacks is that the target organization is preparing to close an acquisition with an Asian company as part of a corporate expansion. First Cosmic Lynx impersonates a company's CEO, asking the target employee to work with 'external legal counsel' to coordinate the payments needed to close the acquisition. Then, Cosmic Lynx hijacks the identity of a legitimate attorney at a U.K.-based law firm, who's supposed job it is to facilitate the transaction. The final stage of a Cosmic Lynx BEC attack is getting the target to send payments to mule accounts controlled by the group."

On other end of the scale, BEC fraudsters were found to request funds in the form of gift cards in 66 percent of BEC attacks.

"During the second quarter of 2020, the average amount of gift cards requested by BEC attackers was $1,213, down from $1,453 in the first quarter of 2020. Scam attempts around this dollar amount may have a decent chance of success, because they can be approved by multiple people in a medium-to-large company, and the amount is small enough to slip by some companies' financial controls."

News URL

https://threatpost.com/bec-wire-transfers-average-80k/158914/