Email threat types: Business Email Compromise

Business email compromise (BEC) has been one of the most damaging email threats in the past few years. Put simply, a BEC attack is an attempt to trick a company or individual into sending money to the criminal. This is done by assuming the identity of a trusted source and crafting an email message with an invoice or other payment request.

One of the most successful BEC scams we’ve seen recently is this attack on Norfund, which cost that organization $10 million. As you can see in our post, the attack took place over several months, and there were multiple components working together to make the BEC scam successful.

This is a type of scam that requires more than one type of email defense. Gateway protection can protect you from spam, malware, and similar attacks. Inbox defense like Barracuda Sentinel uses AI to detect anomalies in communication, and it can protect you from BEC attacks that rely on assumed identities and social engineering.

BEC is one of the email threat types examined in our free e-book, 13 email threat types to know about right now. The Barracuda Total Email Protection Bundle offers a complete suite of email protection to help defend your company from these attacks. For more information on how to protect yourself, download the e-book here.