Security News > 2022 > May > FBI: Rise in Business Email-based Attacks is a $43B Headache
The FBI warned the global cost of business email compromise attacks is $43 billion for the time period of June 2016 and December 2021.
BEC or email account compromise are an advanced scamming technique that targets both employees and business and the businesses they work for.
Scam include social engineering as a means to compromise a legitimate business or personal email account or to perform an unauthorized transfer of funds.
The FBI is also warning that another popular variations of the scam include collecting Personal Identifiable Information in order to perpetrate additional fraud such as tax-related scams and breaching cryptocurrency wallets.
The FBI believes that a 65 percent spike in BEC scams between July 2019 and December 2021 could be partly caused by the pandemic as there were restrictions placed on normal business activities and everything shifted to virtual mode.
"This increase can be partly attributed to the restrictions placed on normal business practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused more workplaces and individuals to conduct routine business virtually," IC3 added.