Cybercrime is ever present, and there is one particular fraud we all should be aware ofparticularly anyone who sends or receives bank wiring instructions or the funds themselves. The fraud involves the hacking or impersonating of email accounts, it might be called business email compromise (BEC) fraud, CEO fraud, or CFO fraud, and it demonstrates that criminal participants are infinitely adaptable in pursuit of profitable schemes. Cybercrime is not always a technical attack, but often about social engineeringtricking a person into performing an actionwhich means we need to stay informed, be alert, and exercise sound judgment.

Email schemes and bank wiring frauds

First, lets review how things are supposed to work when we send a bank wire. We want to send money from our bank account to theirs, the recipient tells us where we should wire the funds, we relay those instructions to the bank, and the bank sends the money from our account to the beneficiarys account.