Security News

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.

FBI: $43 billion in losses are due to Business Email Compromise fraud between 2016 and 2021. The Federal Bureau of Investigation released an alert that said there has been a 65% increase in identified global exposed losses from Business Email Compromise fraud, also known as Email Account Compromise.

Cyber-scams cost victims around the globe at least $6.9 billion last year, according to the FBI's latest Internet Crime Report. A subset of this category, business email compromise, is proving very lucrative and and cost victims almost $2.4 billion from 19,954 victims, according to the feds.

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.

Also called ALPHV and Noberus, the ransomware is notable for being the first-ever malware written in the Rust programming language that's known to be memory safe and offer improved performance. "Many of the developers and money launderers for BlackCat/ALPHV are linked to DarkSide/BlackMatter, indicating they have extensive networks and experience with ransomware operations," the FBI said in an advisory published last week.

The BlackCat ransomware gang, said to be the first-known ransomware group to successfully break into networks with Rust-written malware, has attacked at least 60 organizations globally as of March, according to the FBI. BlackCat, also known as ALPHV, is a relatively new group of cybercriminals that operates a Windows ransomware-as-a-service. While it only appeared on the ransomware crime scene in November 2021, security researchers and federal law enforcement have linked its developers and money launderers to the notorious Darkside/Blackmatter crime rings, "Indicating they have extensive networks and experience with ransomware operations," the FBI said in a security alert [PDF] this week.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the Black Cat ransomware gang, also known as ALPHV, has breached the networks of at least 60 organizations worldwide between November 2021 and March 2022. The flash alert is part of a series of similar reports highlighting the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by and indicators of compromise linked to ransomware variants identified during FBI investigations.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Food and Agriculture sector organizations today of an increased risk that ransomware gangs "May be more likely" to attack them during the harvest and planting seasons. While ransomware groups regularly target the US agriculture sector, the FBI noted that the number of attacks against such entities during such critical seasons stands out.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Treasury Department, warned of a new set of ongoing cyber attacks carried out by the Lazarus Group targeting blockchain companies. Targeted organizations include cryptocurrency exchanges, decentralized finance protocols, play-to-earn cryptocurrency video games, cryptocurrency trading companies, venture capital funds investing in cryptocurrency, and individual holders of large amounts of cryptocurrency or valuable non-fungible tokens.

Cybercriminals are attempting to trick American users of digital payment apps into making instant money transfers in social engineering attacks using text messages with fake bank fraud alerts. "Under the pretext of reversing the fake money transfer, victims are swindled into sending payment to bank accounts under the control of the cyber actors," the FBI said.