Monday, March 30, 2020

Word of the Day: BEC exploits

 
Word of the Day WhatIs.com
Daily updates on the latest technology terms | March 30, 2020

business email compromise

Business email compromise (BEC) is an umbrella term for a security exploit in which the attacker targets an employee who has access to company funds and convinces the victim to tranfer money into a bank account controlled by the attacker.

According to the FBI's Internet Crime Report, BEC exploits were responsible for over $1.77 billion in losses in 2019. Business email compromise is one of the top cyberinsurance claims in 2020, and security vendor Proofpoint has warned businesses that BEC exploits are increasingly being tied to COVID-19.

 

BEC exploits often begin with the attacker using a social engineering scam to trick a C-level target into downloading malware, clicking on an infected link or visiting a compromised website. Once the C-level manager's account has been compromised, it can be used to trick another employee into sending money to the attacker.

 

A popular BEC strategy is to send an official-looking email to someone in the company's finance department. Typically, such an email will say there is a time-sensitive, confidential matter that requires payment be made to a customer's, partner's or supply chain partner's bank account as soon as possible. The attacker hopes that the unsuspecting person in finance will think they are helping their company by facilitating a quick transfer of funds -- when in reality, they are sending money to the attacker's bank account.

 

Measures to prevent this type of financial fraud include employee education, conducing social engineering pen tests and adding a requirement that at least two employees sign approvals for payment change requests. Continue reading...

Today's Takeaway

 

"The Covid-19 lures we've observed are truly social engineering at scale. They know people are looking for safety information and are more likely to click on potentially malicious links or download attachments."
Sherrod DeGrippo

Buzzword Alert

 
two-factor financial authentication

Business email compromises take organizations for millions each year. Keep yours from being added to the victim list by getting users to pick up the phone to verify monetary transactions.


Office 365 security

when evaluating Office 365 security challenges, it's important to examine all the applications within the suite -- and not just concentrate on email.


secure email gateway

People don't realize that unless you do a number of steps to authenticate your email, pretty much anyone can send an email and pretend they are you.

Quiz Yourself

 

A _______ is a hardware key that allows secure access to a licensed software application.

a. private key

b. dongle

Answer

Stay in Touch

 

Thank you for reading! For feedback about any of our definitions or to suggest a new definition (or learning resource) please contact us at: editor@whatIs.com

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