Business email compromise

What it means

The FBI describes BEC as a sophisticated scam that targets businesses and individuals who make legitimate funds transfers, often carried out by compromising real email accounts through social engineering or intrusion. Variants also target employees' personal information, which is then used against other accounts.

Attackers use spoofed domains, lookalike domains and display-name tricks, and when they use a genuine account, its mail passes SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Authentication narrows the field; it cannot catch a real account sending fraudulent requests.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center advises verifying requests to change account details through a second channel and checking the sender's actual address, especially on mobile devices.