IT company "Kaspersky Lab" has prevented more than 100 targeted BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks on companies in the country in May-July 2021, Izvestia wrote, citing the head of the content filtering methods development Alexei Marchenko.

According to Laboratory, such attacks have become more frequent in recent years. Attacks targeted companies in the airline industry, retail, IT and shipping. Employees with access to finances and important internal documents were most often targeted by cyberthreats.

Typically, attackers begin a VES attack with correspondence with a company employee to gain his or her trust. He or she is then persuaded to perform a series of actions that will ultimately damage the business - for example, transferring money to a fake counterparty account or providing confidential documents to a fake lawyer.

"Often, attackers use hacked employee accounts or addresses that look visually similar to a company's official email, but differ by a few characters, to conduct VES attacks. "Attackers are usually well aware of the structure of the company and its processes, and know how to use social engineering techniques," a Kaspersky Lab representative told the publication.

According to him, criminals can easily find the names and positions of employees, their locations, vacation dates and contact lists in the public domain, which makes cyberattacks easier.

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Author: Karina Kamalova