Studies show that for 2021, BEC or business email compromise attack is the vector mainly utilized by threat actors to induce financial losses among firms worldwide, with a total of $2.4 billion.
From the analysis conducted by the FBI, it was revealed that over $6.9 billion was lost from Americans in 2021 through various cyber-crimes such as cryptocurrency theft, ransomware, and BEC attacks.
People could hear a lot about ransomware attacks on different news sites; however, the business email compromise attack is the largest source of fraud based on the studies published by the FBI. Furthermore, a deputy director from the federal agency explained an upsurge of reports from victims of BEC schemes in 2021, with about 19,900 complaints received.
The pandemic had contributed to the uptick of BEC schemes since most organizations relied on technology for communication.
Many advanced threat actors took advantage of the situation to create artificial audios and deep fake video profiles to scam employees via business email compromise.
Through various virtual meeting platforms used by firms during the pandemic, fraudsters spoofed senior officers and asked their subordinates to wire some funds to a malicious bank account. Upon realizing that the transaction was fraudulent, the victims could no longer recover the funds since the hackers had already withdrawn them.
In related news, cybersecurity analysts noted that cryptocurrency laundering is also one of the biggest illegal businesses in 2021, with over $8.6 billion worth of crypto assets cashed out by threat actors. A record of $400 million in crypto assets was stolen by North Korean hackers last year, as they utilised a ‘tumbler’ software to liquidate the large sums of funds in smaller amounts before wiring it to different addresses.
On the other hand, ransomware attacks were also prevalent in 2021, according to federal agencies from the UK and Australia, the FBI, and the National Security Agency. To the report, the Conti ransomware gang was the most notorious among other threat groups leveraging the attack vector for last year.
The Conti gang had a record of 87 ransomware attacks, while the Lockbit 2.0 and REvil groups got 58 and 51 reports, respectively.
The federal agencies also mentioned that the healthcare, finance, and IT sectors were the most targeted for the attack reports gathered in 2021. This year, most experts expect a higher rate of attacks for the stated sectors, although they highly recommend not paying the ransom demands being requested by threat groups.
