Fast Response, Quality Service, 24/7 Technical Monitoring

Remote Support
1300 760 339
Request A Quote

What Is Business Email Compromise? How to Protect Your Business from BEC Attacks

Business Email Compromise (BEC) is one of the most financially damaging online crimes today, costing companies over $50 billion in 2023 alone! In fact, BEC attacks have become more costly than ransomware, data breaches, and many other cyber threats combined. One chemical manufacturing firm lost $60 million in a single BEC scam when an employee transferred funds to fraudulent accounts.

BEC scams are sophisticated operations where criminals spend weeks or months studying their targets before launching an attack. These attackers use email spoofing and social engineering to impersonate executives, vendors, or trusted partners.

But, isn’t that just phishing? Well, yes and no. While BEC and phishing are related cybercrimes, they differ in their level of sophistication, complexity and how specifically they target their victims.

While many emails are flagged as “untrustworthy or malicious,” yet many businesses still lack proper protection. In this post, we’ll discuss what Business Email Compromise really means, how it works, and, most importantly, how you can protect your business from falling victim to these costly attacks.

What Is Business Email Compromise (BEC)?

Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a highly sophisticated cybersecurity threat that targets organisations through deceptive email communications. Unlike many common cyberattacks like malware or viruses, BEC relies heavily on social engineering tactics — attackers impersonate trusted individuals, like executives, vendors, or business partners, to manipulate employees into specific actions, whether that is transferring money, sharing sensitive information, or revealing confidential business data.

BEC is considered “one of the fastest growing, most financially damaging internet-enabled crimes.” It’s reported that BEC crimes have seen a 566% increase since 2016. The shift to remote work has only fueled this rise, providing attackers with more opportunities to exploit digital communication channels that businesses rely on and isolating employees who may not have the usual in-person support to spot suspicious requests.

How BEC Differs from Phishing

While Business Email Compromise falls under the broader category of phishing attacks, it’s unique in several key ways:

  • Targeting and Personalisation: BEC attacks are carefully targeted and highly personalised. Attackers focus on specific individuals or departments, usually those with financial authority, and perform extensive research to craft convincing, believable messages. Traditional phishing casts a wider net with generic emails and little customisation.
  • Attack Complexity: These schemes require meticulous planning. Attackers study organisational hierarchies, business relationships, communication patterns, and even writing styles to make their requests appear legitimate and urgent.
  • Objectives and Methods: Both BEC and phishing aim to gain financially or steal data, but BEC is uniquely focused on manipulating legitimate business transactions by impersonating trusted figures. Phishing often pursues broader goals such as identity theft or malware delivery.
  • Technical Characteristics: BEC attacks typically avoid malware, malicious links, or suspicious attachments that can be detected by security software. Instead, they rely purely on social engineering and the art of deception.

A Phishing Example:

Imagine you receive an email that looks like it’s from your bank, saying there’s a problem with your account. The email asks you to click a link and enter your login details to fix the issue. The message is sent to thousands of people, hoping some will fall for the scam. This is a classic phishing attack, broad, generic, and focused on stealing your personal information through fake websites or malicious links.

A BEC Example:

Now, imagine your company’s finance manager suddenly gets an email that looks like it’s from your CEO, asking to urgently transfer a large sum of money to a new vendor. The email address looks almost identical to the CEO’s real email, and the message even mentions a recent project you’re working on.

This email isn’t sent to many people, it’s carefully crafted just for your finance team. This is a Business Email Compromise attack. Targeted & highly personalised.

Why BEC Is So Difficult to Detect

BEC attacks present some unique challenges that make them particularly difficult to detect:

  • Lack of Traditional Indicators: Since BEC emails usually contain no malware or malicious URLs, they easily bypass standard email security filters and antivirus software.
  • Low-Volume, High-Precision: Unlike widespread phishing campaigns that generate noticeable traffic spikes, BEC attacks typically involve just a handful of highly targeted emails. This low volume, combined with frequent changes in IP addresses, makes blocking and tracing these attacks difficult.
  • Legitimate-Looking Sources: Attackers often spoof trusted email domains, create lookalike addresses differing by a single character, or even compromise legitimate email accounts. Advanced techniques can allow BEC emails to pass technical checks like DMARC, adding to their credibility.
  • Human-Centred Exploitation: These attacks prey on human psychology, leveraging trust and urgency rather than exploiting technical flaws. Employees are less likely to scrutinise and email if the contents seem legitimate. Because of this, traditional security tools such as antivirus programs or endpoint detection systems are often ineffective.
 

Plus, BEC tactics continue to evolve. Attackers now use AI-generated content, multi-channel approaches combining email with phone or video, and sophisticated “thread hijacking” to insert themselves into legitimate email conversations and trick others into trusting fake requests.

Common Types of BEC Attacks

Business Email Compromise comes in several forms, each targeting different weaknesses in how organisations operate. Knowing these common types can help you spot warning signs before scammers cause serious damage:

  1. CEO Fraud: Also referred to as executive fraud, this scam happens when attackers impersonate a company’s CEO or top executive. They send urgent, secretive messages to employees, most often in finance, asking for money transfers or sensitive info. Because it seems like a direct order from the boss, employees often comply without hesitation.
  2. Invoice Scams: These scams target accounts teams by faking invoices from real vendors. Criminals may tweak actual invoices with false payment details, tricking companies into sending money to fake accounts. International suppliers are often targeted since verifying invoices can be tricky. Big companies like Facebook and Google have lost millions to this kind of fraud.
  3. Account Compromise: In this attack, scammers hack into a legitimate employee’s email account, often via phishing or malware. Once inside, they monitor conversations and request payments or changes to vendor details, all from a trusted email address. This makes the fraud much harder to detect, as the emails look authentic and follow normal communication patterns.
  4. Attorney Impersonation: Here, attackers pose as lawyers or legal representatives, often using secrecy and urgency to pressure employees. These scams commonly strike during major company events like mergers or acquisitions to appear believable. A notorious gang, “Cosmic Lynx,” used this tactic to steal over a million dollars per attack by first introducing fake lawyers and then requesting wire transfers.
  5. Data Theft: Unlike scams focused on immediate cash, data theft aims to steal sensitive personal information, such as user information or payroll data. Criminals use this stolen data for identity theft, sell it on the dark web, or use it to launch future BEC attacks. Reports show these cases doubled between 2018 and 2019, making data theft a growing concern.

Real-World Business Email Compromise Examples

Toyota

Toyota Boshoku Corporation, a major Toyota auto parts supplier, lost AUD$ 56.57 million to a sophisticated business email compromise attack at its European subsidiary in August 2019. The scammers tricked an employee who had fthe inancial authority to change bank account details for a funds transfer. This was Toyota’s third cyberattack that year. The company spotted the fraud quickly but couldn’t stop the money transfer.

The scammers used typical BEC tactics to target the finance department. They pretended to be a business partner who needed an urgent transfer. Their message claimed that parts production would suffer if the payment wasn’t made immediately.

Facebook & Google

Tech giants Facebook and Google fell victim to email spoofing from 2013 to 2015. Lithuanian national Evaldas Rimasauskas and his team ran a scam that cost both companies AUD 185.01 million combined.

The scam worked with surprising complexity. The criminals created a fake company called “Quanta Computer” that shared its name with a real hardware supplier, both tech companies worked with, and sent professional-looking fake invoices.

The group created fake lawyers’ letters and contracts to make bank transfers look legitimate. They even put forged corporate seals on documents to avoid detection.

Rimasauskas admitted to wire fraud in 2019. Both tech companies had paid the fake invoices straight to the scammers’ bank accounts. Facebook got most of its money back, while Google recovered an unknown amount.

So, How Do You Protect Your Business from BEC Attacks?

Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks are smart, targeted, and costly, but they can be prevented. With the right mix of technology, training, and procedures, your organisation can stay ahead of even the most convincing scams. Here’s how to build a strong line of defence:

1. Turn On Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA is one of the simplest but most effective tools to stop unauthorised access. It requires users to verify their identity using two or more methods, such as a password plus a one-time code from their phone or a physical security key.

Why it works: Even if attackers steal your password, they can’t get in without the second factor.

Use hardware-backed authentication like FIDO2 keys for your most sensitive accounts—especially email, cloud platforms, and finance tools. Avoid SMS-based MFA when possible, as text messages can also be intercepted.

Did you know? According to the 2023 Oh Behave survey, 94% of people changed how they manage their digital security after proper training, and over a third adopted MFA as part of their daily routine.

2. Use Email Authentication Protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

These protocols help ensure emails coming from your domain are legitimate—and block spoofed ones before they reach your team.

  • SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Lists which mail servers are allowed to send emails for your domain.
  • DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a digital signature to your emails, confirming the message wasn’t altered in transit.
  • DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): Lets you decide what happens when an email fails SPF or DKIM checks (e.g., reject, quarantine, or do nothing).

Make sure your DMARC policy is set to “reject”, not just “monitor,” to stop suspicious emails before they reach your team.

3. Register Lookalike Domains

Cybercriminals often create lookalike domains to impersonate your business. These might include:

  • Swapping characters (e.g., paypa1.com instead of paypal.com)
  • Adding or removing letters (e.g., yourbuisness.com)
  • Replacing “.com” with “.co” or “.org”

If you are especially susceptible to cyber threats, beat attackers to the punch by registering common variations of your domain. It’s a low-cost way to reduce the risk of impersonation and phishing.

4. Train Employees to Recognise Red Flags

Your employees are your first and strongest line of defence. Regular training helps them spot red flags before damage is done.

Focus on training that teaches staff to:

  • Check for small inconsistencies in email addresses and sender names.
  • Be suspicious of urgent requests, especially those involving financial transactions or sensitive data.
  • Recognise social engineering techniques, such as being told not to speak to anyone else about the request.
  •  Follow clear internal processes for approvals, no matter who the request comes from.

Focus especially on finance and procurement teams, who are often the primary targets.

5. Always Verify Requests Independently

If someone asks for a money transfer, change to bank details, or sensitive data, don’t rely solely on email to confirm it.

What to do:

  • Call or use an internal chat system to confirm directly with the person making the request.
  • Use only trusted contact details already on file, never those provided in the suspicious message.
  • Establish clear, documented processes for approving payments and financial changes, including multi-person sign-off.

6. Have a Response Plan Ready

Even with the best defences, no business is immune. Having a clear plan means you can respond quickly, limit damage, and recover faster.

Your BEC incident response plan should include:

  • Who to notify immediately (both internally and externally)
  • Steps to isolate affected systems and email accounts
  • How to preserve evidence for investigation and legal reporting
  • A process for communicating with vendors, clients, or staff if sensitive data was involved
  • Instructions for reviewing and tightening controls after the incident

Tip: Test this plan regularly so your team knows exactly what to do in an emergency.

7. Use Managed Security Services for Ongoing Protection

Keeping up with cybersecurity threats can be overwhelming, especially for small to mid-sized businesses. At CRT Network Solutions, we help businesses stay protected with continuous threat monitoring, rapid response, and proactive risk assessments. Our managed security services give you peace of mind, so you can focus on running your business.

Stay Ahead of BEC Threats with the Right Protection

Business Email Compromise is not a fringe threat. It’s a targeted, high-impact form of cybercrime that’s costing businesses millions. And it’s not just large corporations at risk. Small to medium-sized businesses are increasingly in the crosshairs because attackers know they often lack the resources to respond effectively.

The good news? You don’t have to be vulnerable.

By combining strong technical safeguards, like multi-factor authentication, domain protections, and email authentication protocols, with practical, everyday policies and employee training, you can significantly reduce your risk. The goal is to make impersonation difficult, suspicious requests easier to spot, and your team confident in what to do if something seems off.

Cybersecurity isn’t just about stopping attacks, it’s about building resilience. And that starts with taking action now.

Need help putting the right protections in place?

Let CRT Network Solutions help you secure your business from BEC threats with proven tools, training, and around-the-clock support.

Request A Free Quote

Contact Us

Contact the Brisbane or Sunshine Coast Support Team

24/7 Monitoring

Online Remote & Online Application Based Monitoring

Sales & Accounts

Let's assess your business requirements

News

Stay up to date on the latest IT industry trends and tips with our blog

Cloud Solution

Security

Hardware

Managed Services

Network Services

© Copyright 2022 CRT Network Solutions | Privacy Policy

Web design by Digital Nomads HQ