Security News > 2022 > May > FBI says business email compromise is a $43 billion scam
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said today that the amount of money lost to business email compromise scams continues to grow each year, with a 65% increase in the identified global exposed losses between July 2019 and December 2021.
Victims reported losses of almost $2.4 billion in 2021, based on 19,954 recorded complaints linked to BEC attacks targeting individuals and businesses.
BEC scammers are employing various tactics - including social engineering, phishing, and hacking - to compromise business email accounts which will get used to redirect payments to attacker-controlled bank accounts.
"The scam is not always associated with a transfer-of-funds request," as the FBI explained in the PSA alert.
"One variation involves compromising legitimate business email accounts and requesting employees' Personally Identifiable Information, Wage and Tax Statement forms, or even crypto currency wallets."
Refrain from supplying login credentials or PII of any sort via email.
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