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July 26, 2019 at 09:48 AM
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has updated its email fraud guidance to alert financial institutions to trends in reported business email compromise (BEC) fraud.
The guidance to “Advisory to Financial Institutions on E-mail Compromise Fraud Schemes” issued by FinCEN on Sept. 6, 2016, provides updated operational definitions for email compromise fraud; information on the targeting of non-business entities and data by BEC schemes; highlights general trends in BEC schemes targeting sectors and jurisdictions; and alerts financial institutions to risks associated with the targeting of vulnerable business processes by BEC criminals.
BEC fraud targets accounts of financial institutions or customers of financial institutions.
“While the U.S. government and industry are heavily engaged in efforts to prevent email compromise fraud, reported incidents and aggregate attempted fraudulent wire amounts continue to rise,” the report states.
FinCEN’s updated report notes that the FBI reported over $12 billion in potential losses domestically and internationally from October 2013 to May 2018 from email compromise fraud.
Since FinCEN’s 2016 BEC Advisory, FinCEN has received over 32,000 reports involving almost $9 billion in attempted theft from BEC fraud schemes affecting U.S. financial institutions and their customers.
