Researchers at Bitdefender warn that cybercriminals continue to impersonate Elon Musk in Bitcoin scams. One campaign that started on May 15 involved sending thousands of emails telling users to register for a $5,000 Bitcoin giveaway organized by Tesla. “79.72% of scam emails appear to be sent from IP addresses in Germany, targeting users in Europe […]
Threat Actors Take Advantage of Exchange Online and Outlook on the Web with New Levels of Sophistication
New insight from Accenture Security highlights specific ways attackers are changing their tactics to make Microsoft’s email platform a tool rather than an obstacle for phishing attacks. We all tend to think of our email platform as something that helps create a more secure environment four our networks. But new disturbing information found in Accenture’s […]
The Geography of Business Email Compromise
Researchers at Agari have released a report on the global distribution of business email compromise (BEC) actors, and determined that 25% of these criminals are operating from within the United States. This makes the US the second-largest hub for BEC actors in the world. Criminals in Nigeria still account for the vast majority of BEC […]
CEO Fraud Wire Transfer Losses Soar 48% in Q2 2020
Business email compromise attacks—aka CEO Fraud— have taken shape this year, and according to Agari wire transfer losses have significantly increased by 48% in Q2 2020. The average losses of these attacks are $80,000, and the findings came from the Anti-Phishing Working Group’s latest Phishing Activity Trends Report. Agari also noticed that BEC losses that […]
Financial Advisor Fined After Falling for BEC Scam
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined and temporarily suspended a financial advisor working for UBS after he was tricked into transferring $511,870 from a client’s account in a CEO fraud scam, according to FinancialAdvisorIQ. A hacker used social engineering to access the client’s account and asked the advisor, William Darby, to move the money […]
Business Email Compromise Topples Over $26 Billion in Losses
This lucrative business of tricking companies into fraudulently transferring funds into cybercriminal-owned bank accounts is showing signs of growing. Scammers use many forms of attack to attempt to separate your organization from its’ money. BEC—aka CEO Fraud— is one of the easiest; using little more than really good social engineering in some cases, the bad […]
Scam Of The Week: CEO Fraud bad guys are now bribing your users
Today saw the arrival of yet another interesting variant of the gift card phishing campaigns that have grown into a deluge over the past few months (see below). Today’s email demonstrates that bad guys are actively adapting and evolving their pitch. There are couple interesting things going in this new gift card phish: 1. The […]
FBI: Businesses Lost $215M to Email Scams
It’s time once again to update my Value of a Hacked Email Account graphic: According to a recent alert from the FBI, cyber thieves stole nearly $215 million from businesses in the last 14 months using a scam that starts when business executives or employees have their email accounts hijacked.