These days, most people are aware that cybercrime is a very real and ever-increasing threat. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many workers were forced to work remotely for the first time, from their bedrooms, living rooms and kitchen. Terms like ‘phishing’ and ‘ransomware’ are now frequently seen and heard, but there is another type of threat that has seen a huge increase in frequency in 2020 – Business Email Compromise.
Gardaí have reported a sharp increase in the number of invoice redirect and CEO fraud-style attacks on Irish businesses in the last few months. “We are getting a couple of cases every week now”, according to Detective Superintendent Pat Lordan, who said that both small and large companies are being hit for amounts ranging from €10,000 into the millions.
In a global sting, named Operation reWired, authorities in the US and around the world have arrested 281 individuals that were involved in a global Business Email Compromise (BEC) scam. The ring had been under investigation for months, during which they were found to have hijacked email accounts belonging to company executives, impersonated staff and ultimately tricked unsuspecting employees into wiring millions in funds into the group’s accounts.
Trend Micro, one of the largest cyber security firms in the world, has released their annual security roundup report, and the results show some alarming trends. With the GDPR upcoming, cyber criminals have been refining their techniques in order to increase their financial gains, moving away from exploit kits which can be an unpredictable earner, to more reliable tactics such as business email compromise, phishing and spam, ransomware, and the relatively new threat to businesses, malicious crypto-currency mining.
Dublin Zoo has admitted it has been hit by a scam in which cyber criminals were reportedly able to steal up to €500,000. The zoo has stated that they are cooperating with the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau in a case of invoice redirect fraud. While neither the Gardaí nor Dublin Zoo revealed the amount of money taken, sources have reported that it was up to €500,000, most of which was successfully recovered.
