Over the past year, businesses around the world have recorded huge losses as a result of multiple types of fraud known as Business Email Compromise (BEC), netting scammers close to $215 million in profits.
The report comes from a public service announcement issued by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.
According to the report, most of the victims are from the US, which suffered the bulk of the financial losses, but businesses in 45 other countries around the world were also defrauded.
The IC3 reports that between October 10, 2013, and December 1, 2014, a total of 2,126 victims fell victim to BEC fraud, with 1,198 of the victims being from the United States, while 928 were from other countries.
However, the situation is disastrous for businesses in the US, as they are targeted more frequently and during the analysis period, they recorded a total of $180 million in financial losses.
On a larger scale, BEC-type scams target large companies that either purchase fictitious goods or hand over their products to the scammers after being led to agree to a late payment.
This is achieved via phone, email or fax with the scammer posing as a long-time associate of the targeted businesses. The message the victim receives asks them to send the goods or money to a different account or bank than the usual one.
Since there is a solid relationship between the cooperating parties, the victim agrees to the request and the scammers eventually receive the merchandise or funds. The scheme is complex, as it also involves forged documents.
A variation of the scam involves scammers taking control of a high-ranking executive's email account, which they use to send a transfer request to the person in charge of that business.
Alternatively, cybercriminals gain access to an employee's email and use it to send invoice payment requests to business partners identified from the contact list.
In other email scams (work from home, lottery, etc.), victims are often tricked into accepting a generous job offer to eventually be used as money "transporters."
Specifically, they receive money illegally obtained by the fraudster into their personal bank account and are asked to deliver some of it via bank transfer to a bank account belonging to the fraudster.
The IC3 reports that victims are sometimes tricked into opening accounts for fake companies in their own names, so when the scam is exposed, it's clear that the victim was responsible.
Based on IC3's investigation, it appears that most of these scammers are located in China, as wire transfers were made to banks in China and Hong Kong.
