The Treasury Department’s Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection issued an alert on business email compromise (BEC) scams.
Details: In the alert to financial institutions, the OCCIP said:
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BEC is a coordinated fraud operation that compromises trust in business communications and converts that trust into unauthorized movement of money.
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The key risk is that a technically legitimate payment instruction may be commercially fraudulent because the surrounding identity, vendor, or approval process has been compromised.
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Because BEC thrives when trust is assumed across email and payments, financial institutions reduce risk when trust is continuously verified across identity, communication, authorization, and money movement.
ICBA Resources: Cybersecurity resources for community banks are available on ICBA's Cyber and Data Security resource center.