Orion S.A., a global supplier of carbon black, recently experienced a significant financial loss due to a business email compromise (BEC) scam. The company reported that approximately $60 million was fraudulently transferred after an employee was deceived into making multiple wire transfers to accounts controlled by cybercriminals. This incident highlights the growing threat of BEC scams, where attackers often impersonate executives to trick employees into transferring company funds.
Orion has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about the incident and is working with law enforcement to recover the stolen funds. Orion expects to record a one-time pre-tax charge of about $60 million for the unrecovered funds if no further recoveries occur. The company is also exploring all legal avenues, including potential insurance coverage, to recover the stolen money.
The FBI has long warned businesses about the risks of business email compromise (BEC) scams, where cybercriminals impersonate executives to trick employees into transferring funds. These scams often involve phishing emails to steal login information or compromising vendor email accounts.
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Prevent This From Happening TO YOU!
There are numerous tools available to help companies prevent business email compromise (BEC) incidents. Although promptly reporting the event to the appropriate authorities may assist in recovering a significant portion of lost funds, the most effective strategy to minimize losses is to prevent BEC events from occurring in the first place.
Below are 3 main tactics to use for averting a successful BEC attack:
- Preventing threat actors from gaining access to organization email accounts
- Preventing fraudulent emails from reaching employees
- Helping employees identify fraudulent emails so that they don’t engage the threat actor
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Source: Guy Carpenter – Cyber’s Sleeper Threat: Business Email Compromise
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Sincerely,
Michael Beranek
Berkley Crime
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| National Practice Leader Michael Beranek (646) 522-7362 [email protected] | East Regional Manager/Commercial Crime Product Leader Matt McNamara (212) 497-3707 [email protected] |
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