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Business Email Compromise is one of the most dangerous scams that is currently gaining popularity among hackers. By stealing a real email address or creating a fake look-alike, cyber-criminals can do a significant amount of damage to an organization.
As we’ve discussed before, the scammers usually attempt to get the victim to send a wire transfer or buy gift cards as a method of stealing money. The new information we have, however, comes from The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Their new report reveals that the most affected industries in 2017 and 2018 are manufacturing and construction.
“Among transactions targeting manufacturing and construction firms in 2017, 33 percent listed a
foreign beneficiary. Regular interactions with overseas suppliers, who may require regular use of
wire transfers for payment, and publicly available client information likely make manufacturing
and construction companies particularly susceptible to BEC fraud.”
2017 and 2018 BEC Targets by Industry
Construction Industry: Protect Your Business!
As this is a popular new route of attack for cyber criminals, your company must be vigilant when dealing with wire transfers, purchasing gift cards, or paying invoices:
1 Have clear lines of communication in your operations. If something doesn’t seem correct, your employees need to have a direct path to report strange activity. Scammers will push your employees and create a false sense of urgency to swindle your business.
2 Have hardware and software in place to stop impersonators. Some reasonable cyber security measures that your organization can implement are a firewall, email spam filters, tiered user access, network monitoring, and backup/replication.
3 Protect Your Data! No one will be able to stop every cyber attack that hits your business. It’s important that data is segmented, backed up, replicated, and monitored. When an attack does happen, your business needs to be prepared.
Regardless of your organization’s size, NetConnect can help you mitigate the chances that a cyber attack inflicts serious harm to your business.
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DATA BREACHES CAN HAPPEN TO BUSINESSES OF ANY SIZE
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