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  Geebo 9:00 am on November 19, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: business email compromise, malware ( 27 ), money transfer ( 7 ), mortgage scam ( 5 ), ransomware ( 11 ), Scams ( 1,429 )   

  This mortgage scam is more common that you think 

  

  By Greg Collier

  The mortgage scam we’re about to discuss we’ve posted about before. While it’s not a new scam, what surprised us is how often this scam supposedly happens.

  The scam is known as the business email compromise scam, but that phrase encompasses a number of scams where scammers cam imitate business emails that they’ve hijacked. Often these hijacked accounts are used to target someone else that’s in that business, such as someone in payroll or accounting who can issue checks. However, the BEC scam can also target outside customers as well. In this case, people who are getting ready to close on a home.

  In the mortgage version of this scam, scammers are monitoring the email accounts of title companies. The scammers have gained access to these email accounts through malware attacks. When the process is almost complete, the scammers will send an email to the home buyer that appears to have come from the title company asking for the final closing cost to be wired. In one recent case in North Carolina, that amount came to almost $50,000 that the home buyer lost to scammers. By the time the home buyer realized he’d been scammed, the money he wired had already been wired again to multiple locations.

  What really surprised us about this recent scam was that the FBI has said that this mortgage scam is more common than ransomware attacks. Since we hear about ransomware attacks against companies and hospitals on an almost weekly basis, this scam must happen quite often.

  The best way to protect yourself against this scam is to confirm any transactions with your title company over the phone before sending any money. Other tips include if the money wiring instructions are different from before or if there are grammatical errors in the email.

   

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  Geebo 8:00 am on July 8, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: business email compromise, phishing ( 79 ), Scams ( 1,429 )   

  Increase in scams against businesses seen 

  

  We’ve discussed a certain scam that targets businesses only a handful of times in the past. The scam comes in a few different forms but the goal is always the same and that’s to steal money from the company.

  There’s the business email compromise scam where a scammer spoofs their email address to make it look like they’re a high ranking executive at your company. The scammer will contact an employee that has financial responsibilities like payroll or accounts payable through the spoofed email. They’ll then instruct that employee to send money to a new direct deposit bank account or issue payment to a phony vendor who is in league with the scammer.

  One particularly eerie scam was when scammers used deep fake voice technology to impersonate the company’s CEO and ordered a company director to wire $240,000 to a phony vendor.

  Like we said, these stories were edge cases that only happened a handful of times. Also, they happened when most people were still working in offices and not working from home.

  Now, with the current global pandemic, more people than ever are working from home and the scammers know this. Due to the record number of people working at home, the Better Business Bureau says that these business impersonation scams have increased exponentially. Without being able to just walk to your boss’s office it can be difficult to get confirmation from your higher-ups.

  If you get an email from a company executive to wire transfer money, send gift cards, or make a payment right away that’s out of the ordinary, contact that executive by phone to make sure the request is legitimate or not. While some bosses may get gruff over this idea you can always tell them you’re just trying to keep the company secure and save the company money. Also, you may want to address this situation with your bosses if it hasn’t already been addressed and suggest some kind of system to prevent these scams from being successful.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PszKH3fbWzg

   
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  Geebo 8:00 am on September 12, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: business email compromise, Operation reWired, Scams ( 1,429 )   

  Close to 300 email scammers arrested in global operation 

  

  Recently, the Justice Department announced the arrests of 281 scammers that were allegedly involved in email and wire fraud. The scams that were involved ran the gamut including business email compromise schemes, phony employment scams, lottery scams, phony car sales, and, of course, romance scams. These particualr scammers are said to have scammed their victims in the US out of $3.7 million. Those arrested are from all over the globe including Nigeria, the United States, Turkey, Ghana, France, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.

  The business email compromise scheme is probably the costliest scam to hit the United States in recent times. In this scam, phony emails that look legitimate are sent to the financial departments of corporations trying to get money wired to overseas accounts. Often the emails will appear like they’ve been sent by the corporation’s CEO or some other high ranking official. According to the FBI, this scam has cost various companies tens of billions of dollars.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnK8JGeAfI%5D

  While this sweep, dubbed Operation reWired, was a major success for the DOJ, in the grand scheme of things, it’s just a drop in the bucket. As technology advances, so do the scammers. They’re constantly refining their techniques to outsmart their victims while the rest of us are trying to play catch up. The best any of us can do is to continue educating ourselves on what scams to currently look out for as they continue to emerge.