Microsoft released a new report warning companies of the alarming surge in business email compromise (BEC) attacks and the evolving tactics employed by cyber-criminals.
The fourth edition of the Cyber Signals report, titled “The Confidence Game,” provides a comprehensive analysis of the threat landscape from April 2022 to April 2023, signifying that Microsoft Threat Intelligence detected and investigated 35 million BEC attempts with an average of 156,000 BEC attacks daily. These attacks have increased significantly by 38% over the past four years. As stated in the report, the surge in cybercrime activity leading to BEC attacks costs organizations millions of dollars annually.
Attackers have increasingly utilized platforms like BulletProftLink to orchestrate large-scale malicious email campaigns. BulletProftLink offers cyber-criminals an end-to-end service, including templates, hosting, and automated services, enabling them to execute BEC attacks quickly and efficiently. The report highlighted the growing sophistication of BEC attacks; the decentralized approach makes it significantly harder to disrupt these malicious activities.
To combat the rising threat, Microsoft recommends several proactive measures. These include maximizing security settings in email systems, enabling notifications for unverified email senders, and blocking suspicious identities.
Strong authentication is also crucial to safeguarding email accounts. Additionally, organizations should invest in training their employees to recognize warning signs of BEC attacks and adopt secure payment platforms to authenticate transactions.
To read the full report by Microsoft click here.
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