Abnormal Security, a leader in protecting large enterprises from Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, published research data that shows a 200 percent increase in BEC attacks focused on invoice or payment fraud from April to May 2020. This sharp rise continues the trend observed by Abnormal Security throughout the year. According to the Abnormal Security Quarterly BEC Report for Q1 2020, invoice and payment fraud attacks increased more than 75 percent in the first three months of 2020.
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.@AbnormalSec’s research team observed a 200% spike in invoice and payment fraud #BEC attacks in the month of May 2020.
During invoice and payment fraud BEC attacks, attackers pose as vendors, suppliers or customers in order to steal money using tactics such as initiating fraudulent wire transfers or hijacking vendor conversations to redirect vendor payments. These types of attacks typically involve much larger dollar amounts compared to other types of BEC attacks since they target business to business transactions.
In one example, the Abnormal Security team detected and stopped an attempted invoice fraud targeting a telecommunications provider, preventing more than $700,000 in losses. The attacker impersonated a real vendor and methodically engaged numerous employees over the course of two months, eventually convincing the target to change banking details and redirect the payment of a legitimate invoice of over $700,000 to the attacker’s account before Abnormal Security prevented the transaction.
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Abnormal Security tracked an increasing number of these attacks, both in the number of organizations targeted and the number of attacks received per organization. For May 2020, the Abnormal Security research team observed:
- A 200% increase in the average rate of invoice and payment fraud BEC attacks each week
- A 36% increase in the number of organizations experiencing these attacks
- Out of all types of BEC attacks, invoice and payment fraud BEC attacks are increasing in popularity. In April, these types of attacks comprised 14% of all BEC attacks, increasing to 17% in May.
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