It’s surprising how easily companies have been tricked into sending $17.2 million to a fake bank account. Goldberg Segalla’s James E. Vinocur, a partner in Goldberg Segalla’s Cybersecurity and Data Privacy practice, explores the cyber threat of business email compromise (BEC) in the American Bar Association’s The Brief. In the article, James delves into what BEC is, the insurance and legal implications of BEC, future trends of this cyber threat, and how organizations may better defend themselves against it.

BEC is defined as “a type of cyberattack that targets organizations of all sizes into wiring funds to unauthorized recipients,” with BEC costing companies an excess of $1.8 billion in 2020 alone according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center yearly report.

However, in the case of a successful BEC, costs for a company can be amplified beyond the financial goals of the attacker.  Employees’ time, damage to reputation, and the cost of remediation following an attack are all additional costs that amplify the impact of a BEC.

James proposes a number of solutions to combat BEC as the cyberattacks become more frequent and complex. These solutions include educating employees on the importance of cybersecurity and spotting potential cyber compromises, enacting multifactor authentication, managing emails and passwords, and using secure lines of communication for independent verification.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: “Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts: The Scourge That Is Business Email Compromise,” The Brief, March 9, 2022

MORE ABOUT GOLDBERG SEGALLA’S JAMES E. VINOCUR:

James E. Vinocur is a highly experienced litigator with more than 10 years of experience handling matters in New York courts. His extensive experience includes data privacy litigation, cyber and white-collar fraud, including institutional and corporate cyber intrusions and theft, international money laundering schemes, business email compromise fraud, international identity theft rings, SIM swapping schemes, and complex cryptocurrency fraud.