According to this year’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, the majority of malicious cyber attacks are financially motivated. So, when prioritizing risk, it makes sense to focus on cyber threats that have direct financial implications, such as ransomware and business email compromise (BEC) schemes.
Given the recent rise in ransomware attacks and the targeting of public agencies, it’s pretty likely you’ve seen some news about ransomware within the past year. And while it is certainly important to protect against the possibility of ransomware, that doesn’t mean less-publicized cyber attacks like BEC should be taken any less seriously.
In general, business email compromise involves scammers sending employees an email that looks as if it is coming from a familiar source requesting some sort of payment. Usually, scammers will impersonate frequently used vendors or even CEOs. And these scams can be costly. Last year Nikkei, a Japanese media company, suffered a loss of $29 million when a scammer impersonated a company executive.
In fact, BEC scams have repeated topped the FBI’s annual Internet Crime Report as the costliest form of cyber crime. And, when you compare the costs of BEC and ransomware attacks, it becomes pretty clear which one poses the greater risk.
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While FBI’s report shows a sharp increase in ransomware losses in recent years, BEC scams continue to outpace ransomware by a staggering margin. If you were responsible for prioritizing risk activities in your organization, where would you focus? When you follow the money, the answer is pretty obvious. The good news, however, is that a lot of the procedures, guidelines, and training that can be done to prevent BEC can also help ransomware, such as anti-malware software and email authentication. It can be easy to base your cybersecurity processes off of what you see in the headlines, but that won’t always give you an accurate view of your risk profile. It’s essential to conduct regular risk assessments to gain a clear understanding of the biggest threats your organization faces.