In my scam of the day for December 26, 2016 I told you about the Boston Division of the FBI warning companies about a huge surge of Business E-Mail Compromise scams (BEC).  The scam involves an email sent to the people who control payments at a targeted company. These people receive an email purportedly from the CEO, company attorney or even a vendor with which the company does business requesting funds be wired to a phony company or person.   At its essence, this scam is remarkably simple and relies more on simple psychology instead of sophisticated computer malware.  Often the scammers will do significant research to not only learn the name of the key employees involved with payments within a company, but also will infiltrate the email accounts of company employees for a substantial period of time to learn the protocols and language used by the company in making payments.  The scammers will also gather information from the company’s website and from social media accounts of its employees, all in an effort to adapt their message to seem more legitimate.
In March, Evaldas Rimasauskas, a Lithuanian citizen was arrested and charged with perpetrating this type of a scam against both Facebook and Google from which he was able to steal more than a hundred million dollars by posing as a Taiwanese company, Quanta Computer which is a major supplier to American high tech companies.  When Rimasauskas was first indicted, the indictment did not provide the names of the companies he was alleged to have swindled nor the company he is alleged to have posed as, but a recent investigation by Fortune Magazine uncovered these facts.
TIPS
In order to avoid this scam, companies should be particularly wary of requests for wire transfers made by email. Wire transfers are the preferred method of payment of scammers because of the impossibility of getting the money back once it has been sent.  Verification protocols for wire transfers and other bill payments should be instituted including, dual factor authentication when appropriate.  Companies should also consider the amount of information that is available about them and their employees that can be used by scammers to perpetrate this crime.  They also should have strict rules regarding company information included on employee social media accounts that can be exploited for “spear phishing” emails which play a large part in this scam. Finally, employees should be specifically educated about this scam in order to be on the lookout for it.