Falling for an impostor’s email is easier than you might think.
Imagine this scenario: You work for a large company that has been involved in acquisitions. Your job is to pay the bills. One morning, you get an email from your CEO who’s travelling. He wants you to do a wire transfer so that he can start the process of acquiring another company. And he doesn’t want you to tell anyone until the deal is done. It’s not uncommon for your CEO to email you about wiring money. And it makes sense that he doesn’t want the news to leak.

This is an example of business email compromise (BEC), an attack that has hit more than 22,000 organisations around the world and cost an estimated $3.08 billion since the FBI began tracking it in January 2015. BEC attacks use email to trick people into wiring money or sending sensitive corporate information such as employees’ personal data. Fortunately, you can prevent BEC attacks from succeeding. Consider this guide a starting point. Learn about the factors behind the surge of BEC attacks, what to do if it happens to you, and most important, how to how to avoid falling victim in the first place.