Business Email Compromise (BEC) Attacks Rise in 75% of Industries According to Abnormal Security Research
Summary
The research, which analyzes business email compromise attacks tracked by Abnormal from July-September 2020, found that BEC campaign volume increased 15% quarter-over-quarter, driven by an explosion in invoice and payment fraud. Since these attacks are targeted and sophisticated, these increases could indicate an ability for threat actors to scale that may overwhelm some businesses.” For this research, Abnormal Security tracked BEC campaigns across eight major industries, including Retail/Consumer Goods & Manufacturing, Technology, Energy/Infrastructure, Services, Medical, Media/TV, Finance and Hospitality. Threat actors continue to target invoice and payment fraud BEC attacks at finance departments, which increased by 54% on average per week from Q2 to Q3. • While credential-phishing COVID-19 related attacks decreased by 82%, invoice and payment fraud that continues to leverage the fear, uncertainty and doubt of the pandemic increased by 81%. The Abnormal Security platform stops targeted email attacks and detects compromised accounts through innovative AI that analyzes organizations from the inside out to get a deep understanding of the people in the enterprise, organizational processes and the extended supply chain.