Annual FBI report raises serious questions about wire transfer safety

While many business owners feel confident they have these threats quarantined with virus protection or other tactics, social engineering hacks bypass standard protection and other systems by communicating directly with unsuspecting employees. (Photo: Worldwide Facilities)

The 2018 Internet Crime Report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) shows wire transfer fraud is currently a major threat to business owners. 

According to the report, business email compromise (BEC) is one of the leading risks, with manufacturing and construction being the most targeted industries in 2017 and 2018. BEC usually involves a social engineering tactic that occurs after a hacker compromises a business’s email and attempts to forge wire transfers to anonymous accounts (often offshore), which makes tracing them more difficult. The manufacturing and construction industries have been generally slow to secure cyber policies to protect from this threat, making them a prime target for hacking.