Anyone Can Be A Victim – Business Email Compromise Does Not Play Favorites

No matter how big you are –, you can be a victim. Business email compromise can happen to anyone, and it only takes a single moment of inattention for it to work. To carry out a business email compromise scam, the hacker will research to find out about the target and then use that knowledge to infiltrate the organization by masquerading as someone with authority to bill or collect money for the organization. It happened to Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank who lost over a quarter of a million dollars to one of these scams. In a single moment, her bookkeeper glanced over an email and transferred the money. The email address had only one unique character that was different from the valid email address of Barbara’s executive assistant. Working quickly, she did not notice that insignificant but costly detail. Fortunately for Barbara the German Bank was able to suspend the transaction before the money was transferred to China.