Stu Sjouwerman, of Cyberheist News, reports that in the last few months, law enforcement has warned repeatedly about a new scam that is rapidly expanding. The FBI calls it Business Email Compromise (BEC), but it is better known as CEO Fraud.
Now Symantec is sounding the alert. They have a service called Email Security Cloud and they are seeing these types of spoofed CEO emails trending up. BEC attackers target senior-level employees rather than consumers becasue it is easier to scam them out of large amounts. In one incident, we observed the scammers asking the target to transfer over 370,000 dollars. By requesting large amounts of money, the scammers only need to be successful a couple of times to make a profit, Symantec researchers explained.
The FBI estimates that the amount lost to BEC between October 2013 and August 2015 was over 1.2 billion. With such huge returns, it is unlikely that these scams will cease any time soon. C-level employees, especially CEOs and CFOs, have to be aware of the various techniques the scammers are using to trick them into wiring out large amounts of money.
BEC emails typically have the same format, the email poses as a message from the targeted company CEO. This is done using one or more of the following methods:
1. Compromising the CEO email account
2. Spoofing the CEO email address
3. Using a form of typo-squatting where the email address uses a domain which resembles the targeted company actual domain (e.g. myydomain.com vs mydomain.com). These domains are often registered on the same day that the email is sent.
4. The scammers use a few simple tricks to try and avoid arousing suspicion. The emails often state how the CEO is traveling or is in a meeting and can not accept phone calls. 5. Many of the emails have sent from my iPad appended, to suggest the sender is on the road or excuse typos in the message.
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