Gartner – How to Protect Organizations Against Business Email Compromise Phishing

OutThink is recognised by Gartner as a representative vendor innovating in the security awareness and human risk management space.

READ THE FULL RESEARCH – How to Protect Organizations Against Business Email Compromise Phishing

Security and risk management leaders face disruptions on multiple fronts: technological, organizational and human. Preparation and pragmatic execution are vital to address these disruptions and deliver an effective cybersecurity program.

Included in Full Research:

• Endpoint protection platforms (EPP) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions do not protect against business email compromise (BEC) attacks because BEC emails typically lack malware or malicious links, evading basic anti-spam and anti-malware filters.

• BEC phishing often involves account takeover (ATO), making it hard for recipients or systems using only BEC protection to detect fraudulent emails.

• These phishing emails mimic regular content to exploit business process errors and immature practices, allowing attackers to alter payment details and wiring instructions.

• Human errors cause approximately 74% of security breaches, and social engineering attacks, which exploit these errors, now account for 50% of all security incidents.

A business email compromise attack impersonates or takes over a legitimate user email, and mostly targets high-ranking individuals, such as the CEO or others authorized to conduct fund transfers, posing a significant financial and data breach risk for organizations.

According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report 2022, around 22,000 complaints were registered for BEC attacks in 2022, resulting in a total loss of approximately $2.7 billion, highlighting the severe impact of these schemes.

To mitigate these risks, educate users and suppliers/partners on the different types of BEC phishing and preventive measures by conducting user awareness training at regular intervals.

If you’d like to learn more about how OutThink can help your organization consistently achieve high engagement and improve knowledge retention through tailored training, get in touch.