How to Protect Your Organization Against Business Email Compromise (BEC)

The tough days for business owners are the moment they start their operations. It isn’t just about planning and executing or managing their budgets; it’s about being on the radar of fraudsters and being vulnerable to cyberattacks that put their business’s confidential information and data at risk. These fraudsters and scammers have become smarter with time, exploring new tactics and strategies that businesses fall victim to.

One of their primary attack methods involves using emails to target businesses and steal from them. However, tech companies like Wateen, with their extensive experience deploying email authentication protocols and encryption, have helped organizations safeguard their valuable data from the business email compromise (BEC).

Understanding BEC

BEC is an advanced cybercrime where scammers use email to scam businesses of all sizes.  This may involve extracting valuable and sensitive information or manipulating victims to transfer vast amounts of funds. Cybercriminals can also use BEC attacks to infect a company’s network infrastructure by spreading harmful malware. This malware is attached to emails designed to trick employees into clicking and downloading suspicious attachments.

A notable increase in such emails was witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic when most companies adopted work-from-home and hybrid work models. Since the employees working from home had open network infrastructure, they were vulnerable to such attacks. According to Fortra, a software company, businesses received almost 23.6% of suspicious emails in Q1 of 2023, which is a 5% increase compared to 2022. This highlights how this threat has become a massive concern for companies across the globe.

How to Protect Against BEC

It is no surprise that businesses have been struggling to secure their sensitive information from cyber attackers for many years. However, the most important defense that protects organizations against BEC is a complete understanding of fraudsters’ tactics.

BEC attacks are quite sophisticated and hard to detect by people with zero or limited IT knowledge. Scammers carefully craft their emails to appear legitimate and target people, such as colleagues or executives, who have access to critical company assets and information. Interestingly, these fraudsters often have the exact details of their roles and create personalized emails, allowing them to gain their trust and make it easier to deceive them. Once hackers take over their accounts, they use them to send fraudulent emails. After the email accounts are compromised, scammers gain access to the email conversations and can reroute the payments to different bank accounts outside the organization’s control.

How Wateen Provides Protection Against Business Email Compromise

Wateen has partnered with many organizations across various industries providing advanced Cisco and Fortinet products to ensure businesses are equipped with the best email authentication, encryption, and cybersecurity tools. These products help detect cyber threats in the earlier stages and prevent targeted email attacks. They also help in managing complex email infrastructures securely, even across multiple locations. Wateen enables businesses to efficiently maintain continuity no matter how sophisticated the threats get.

Ways to Protect Against BEC

Now, there are a number of effective strategies that have been proven to protect businesses from BEC.

1. Implement Email Authentication Protocols

Organizations need to implement email authentication protocols, such as Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC), to verify the authenticity of the emails they receive. DMARC helps significantly prevent domain spoofing, ensuring that emails from an organization’s domain are not fraudulent but legitimate. Organizations also need to implement the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) in order to verify the sender’s authenticity.

2. Educate and Train Employees

Another crucial step that companies can take is to regularly train and educate employees so they can detect suspicious emails and mitigate cyber threats. With an informed workforce, companies can safeguard sensitive data and avoid the risk of cyber theft. Research shows that over 90% of employees display prominent behavioral changes after cybersecurity training. Most of them have started using email authentication protocols and encryption as they now have more clarity in detecting and avoiding phishing attempts.

During cybersecurity training sessions, employees are introduced to several tools and products to help them filter emails, verify senders and encryptions, and offer anti-phishing, anti-spam, and anti-malware protection.

3. Enable MFA

Multi-factor authentication is a necessity in today’s cybersecurity landscape and has benefited organizations by manifolds. It multiplies security by adding another layer of security, making it substantially difficult for fraudsters to breach. When organizations adopt MFA, they effectively close doors to unauthorized intruders, even if the credentials are compromised.

4. Email Authentication Protocols & Email Encryption

It is recommended that companies consistently use email authentication protocols and email encryption to keep their data, such as emails, credentials, and other sensitive content, safe. With encryptions, emails, communications, and all critical information remains secure and is only accessible to authorized users with the correct decryption key.

5. Secure Email Gateways

Another important step in protecting businesses from BEC is to secure email gateways. Businesses should leverage solutions that help filter unauthentic and spam emails as well as detect and block malware.

6. Verify Requests for Funds or Sensitive Data

Businesses should establish email authentication protocols to verify and authenticate senders and email requests, especially those asking for large fund transfers or any other sensitive data. Additionally, the receiver can verify the request by calling the person or meeting in person.

7. Regular Monitoring and Alerts

Businesses must remain vigilant and develop a system that keeps them updated with email activities, such as unusual login attempts or bulk forwarding. They need to conduct extensive security audits regularly. Additionally, setting up automated alerts can increase response time during any BEC.

8. Incident Response Plan

Businesses must develop a sophisticated incident response plan as a proactive security measure. It will help in securing data in case of a cyberattack. This setup should include procedures such as immediate alerts, system isolation, or getting a call or text in case of any BEC incident.

9. Advanced Threat Detection

As cyber threats evolve, companies must upgrade their security measures to stay safe. The emergence of AI has significantly contributed to cybersecurity, with the help of advanced AI-driven tools, to detect unusual patterns in an email and identify compromised accounts.

AI tools use sentiment analysis and natural language processing algorithms to understand the context of the emails better, thus allowing them to detect and filter spam emails. AI is also capable of analyzing email attachments and URLs to separate legitimate emails from harmful ones. You get these advanced email threat detections from AI tools and software in real-time.

Conclusion

BEC is undoubtedly a growing threat, and it requires businesses, whether large or small, to take proactive measures to protect sensitive data. This article highlighted several crucial strategies businesses can take to reduce their vulnerability to cyber-attacks. As cybercriminals refine their tactics, businesses must stay ahead by embracing advanced threat detection tools and developing an effective incident response plan. With the right strategies in place, organizations can safeguard their operations and mitigate the risks associated with BEC.

Protect Your Business Today with Wateen

If you have been a victim of BEC, Wateen is here to help. Wateen combines technical expertise with a customer-centric approach to deliver solutions that reduce the risk of financial loss and data breaches, ensure compliance with industry standards and regulations, and enable seamless scalability as your organization grows.

Protecting your organization from BEC threats requires more than just technology; it demands expertise and proactive management. Partner with Wateen Solutions by clicking the link here to secure your email infrastructure and safeguard your business against evolving cyber threats.