Business Email Compromise
Learn about BEC and protect your organization with resources from Cofense
Cofense: Your BEC Leaders
Business email compromise, often known simply as BEC or Email Account Compromise (EAC), is when threat actors use email fraud to attack commercial, government and non-profit organizations to achieve a specific outcome which negatively impacts the target organization. Basically, BEC’s goal is to deceive people into thinking they have received a legitimate business-related email and convince them into doing something they believe is necessary to help the company.
BEC Corner

Ronnie Tokazowski
If someone whispers the letters “B”, “E”, and “C” somewhere on the internet, chances are that Ronnie’s name comes up. Stemming from the days before APT was a buzzword, Ronnie has spent the last 6 years fighting and advocating for all things Business Email Compromise. He likes pointing to big numbers, says we need to start caring about each other to fix this problem, and can frequently be found posting memes on why the financial losses of BEC are worse than ransomware. (Aside from it being a cold fact, of course.) Follow Ronnie on Twitter and LinkedIn.
What is BEC?
Business Email Compromise Overview
Business email compromise amounts to an estimated $500 billion-plus annually that’s lost to fraud. That’s billions lost to unemployment fraud. Billions lost to romance scams, real estate cons, advanced-fee fraud and dozens of other crimes affecting hundreds of thousands of victims. No single company can solve BEC, but awareness can help.
Spoofing
What’s worse, suppliers and customers can be attacked using your organization’s email domain, which greatly impacts relationships, your organization’s reputation, and stakeholder trust.
Other BEC Methods
BEC is Big Money
According to HelpNet Security, there was a 200% increase in business email compromise attacks focused on invoice or payment fraud from April to May 2020, posing an internal risk to organizations; and a reputation risk. As stated above, if a supplier or customer falls for a BEC attack that claims to come from a known organization, it can harm the established trust in the existing relationship as well.
How to Combat BEC
There is no single technology solution to BEC, rather it’s a combination of technology, process and user awareness.
BEC is CEO Fraud
How does Business Email Compromise (BEC) work?
What makes an email suspicious?
What should the business do to guard against suspicious email?
Latest BEC Threats Found
Every week we update this page with a selection of the latest threats our analysts discover in environments protected by Proofpoint and other SEGs.
Filter by SEG
SEG
Tactic
Theme
ENVIRONMENTS: Microsoft Defender for O365
TYPE: Credential Phishing
POSTED ON: 05/27/2022
TACTIC: Link
THEME: Fax-themed emails
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Fax-themed emails found in environments protected by Microsoft ATP deliver Credential Phishing via an embedded link.
ENVIRONMENTS: Cisco Ironport
TYPE: Credential Phishing
POSTED ON: 05/25/2022
TACTIC: Link
THEME: Notification
PHISHING EXAMPLE DESCRIPTION: Notification-themed emails found in environments protected by Cisco Ironport and Microsoft ATP deliver Credential Phishing via an embedded link.
BEC Resources
Gauge the Risks of BEC
Companies, governments, and organizations of all sizes fall victims to BEC attacks. When the attacks are successful, the costs can be substantial.
Critical Infrastructure
5th
top cybersecurity
risk
Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure were rated the fifth top cybersecurity risk in 2020.
(World Economic Forum)
Federal Government
1 in 15
government employees were exposed to phishing threats in 2020.
(Lookout)
Healthcare
$175
MILLION
healthcare records have been stolen or exposed in recent years.
(HIPAA Journal)
Manufacturing
$54
MILLION
Aircraft parts manufacturer FACC AG lost $54 million from a BEC scam that targeted the company’s finance department.
(Security Week)
Protect Your Organization from BEC Attacks
Follow our checklist to ensure your organization stays protected.