Tag: Business Email Compromise (BEC)

Despite being in the business of risk mitigation, insurance firms themselves are often subject to risk in the form of insurance crime. Last year, the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) found that South African life insurers detected 4,287 fraudulent and dishonest claims worth R787.6 million across the board.

With technology integrated into every facet of an organisation, there are massive consequences if systems go down, regardless of the size or industry sector of a business. Over the years, I have seen my share of the IT challenges companies face daily. However, these extend beyond the operational to include cybersecurity concerns as well.

Multi-vector attacks, phishing, BEC, insider threats, and brand impersonation require a pervasive security strategy. It involves a combination of proactive defence to stop threats even before they’re deployed, blocking threats from email and the web, and remediating internal incidents to return to business as usual as quickly as possible.

Our experts are increasingly observing Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks. Between May and July 2021, our products prevented more than 9,500 BEC attacks globally, including those against businesses in air transportation, industry, retail, IT, and delivery.

Business Email Compromise (BEC) and cyber attacks are on the increase worldwide. Conveyancing firms, their clients, and other organisations effecting many large non-recurring type transactions are particularly vulnerable to BEC fraud.

When there is a crisis, there are those that will try and take advantage. Unfortunately, cybercriminals aren't guided by the same moral compass as the rest of humanity. In fact, they are using the current COVID-19 pandemic to try and break through defences by using scare tactics and a variety of malicious campaigns including email spam, BEC, malware, ransomware, malicious domains, and sending seemingly helpful emails to spread infected files.

Mimecast’s latest Email Security Risk Assessment (ESRA) report has found a 269% increase in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks. Furthermore, the FBI recently indicated that worldwide losses from such attacks amounted to approximately $26 billion over the last three years.

Cyber-attacks are increasingly becoming more and more sophisticated, and the magnitude of their impact across all industries globally is at an all-time high. A number of reports in the last two years revealed that the BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) were found to be amongst the largest victims of cybercrime. According to VM Advisory*, South Africa is listed as one of the ten globally most vulnerable countries to cyberattacks.