FBI: Business Email Compromise attacks led to more than $43 billion in losses since 2016

More than $43 billion has been lost through Business Email Compromise and Email Account Compromise scams since 2016, according to data released Wednesday by the FBI. 

The FBI and its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said in an alert that when it combined domestic and international exposed dollar loss from June 2016 and December 2021, it found that $43.31 billion was taken across 241,206 incidents.

The figures are derived from incidents reported to IC3, law enforcement and filings with financial institutions.

BEC scams are popular attacks where hackers compromise legitimate business or personal email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion before conducting unauthorized transfers of funds.

The FBI noted that there are now variations of the scam involving the theft of employees’ personally identifiable information, Wage and Tax Statement (W-2) forms or even…