Hackers lured an experienced employee into a vicious trap.

"I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck," a longtime warehouse employee told Cybernews. Falling for a fake email, he put all of the company in jeopardy and decided to share his story to prevent others from walking into the same trap.

Last year, victims lost $2.4 billion to business email compromise (BEC) attacks in the US alone. Sophisticated scams fool even the most experienced employees who are well aware of how to spot phishing.

It's not only embarrassment that fooled employees have to survive – a simple benign-looking email can put the entire company at risk.

It recently happened to a warehouse company in the US. An employee with 28 years of experience was tricked into believing that his client had initiated a wire transfer. Only after the bank got suspicious of the transaction he understood this was a trap. The employee, who wished to remain anonymous, agreed to share his story with Cybernews.

"I sometimes take my tenure and strong arm if needed to say, "hey, let's expedite this, get this done so I can close this project." the employee, vice president of business development at the company, said.

He forwarded the email asking the company's Chief Finance Officer (CFO) to close the deal with a vendor by completing the transaction. The CFO did as told and nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the bank called about the transaction.

It turns out that the receiver of the funds was trying to convert them into cryptocurrency, so the bank flagged the transaction and decided to make an inquiry. Apparently, it was a threat actor simply trying to move the funds. 

Full article here https://cybernews.com/security/hackers-lured-experienced-employee-into-trap/

#hackers #fake #email #phishing #money #transfer #fraud #yokdata #blog