Can you tell the difference between your colleagues and a scammer with access to their email account? This is essentially what a business email compromise attack involves—a scammer initiates a phishing scheme using an internal mode of communication. These scams are also observed in schools, making them dangerous in the education sector.
Today, we’re exploring how to navigate these attacks safely and what’s at stake if you don’t.
Most employees won’t think twice if they receive a request for information—especially if it comes from a trusted company entity.
Business email compromise is an attack that uses an essential business communication tool to fool the victim into handing over the information directly. In some cases, the attacker might even receive direct access to the information they seek. There are no two ways about it—this situation is bad, full stop.
Here’s how it works:
These attacks are increasingly becoming more significant problems for schools and educational institutions.
Schools and public institutions find themselves the target of these attacks for a couple of reasons:
It makes sense that schools in California and Tennessee have been targeted by these attacks, given how much hackers stand to gain from a successful strike. These institutions can sustain damages of up to six or even seven figures. But those are just the direct costs, not to mention the other damages to reputations and penalties.
All of these are reasons to consider your own approach to securing your business from BEC attacks.
We recommend that all Chicagoland businesses take the following security precautions for BEC:
With these measures in place, we’re confident you’ll be in a much better position to identify and prevent BEC attacks.
If you’re worried about your business’ security, you can rely on Preferred to keep you safe. Learn more today by calling us at 708-781-7110.
Preferred is once again, honored for being a Best Place to Work for the fifth straight year! Our team is what makes Preferred a Best Place to Work.
Daily Herald Suburban Business 2024 Best Places to Work Honorees The Daily Herald Suburban Business has announced the names of 51 companies, in 5 categories of competition, that are honored as the 2024 Best Places to Work in Illinois. This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Illinois, benefiting the state's economy, its workforce and businesses.
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