Business Email Compromise (BEC), or also knows as Email Account Compromise, CEO fraud, or CEO impersonation is a fraud scheme through which fraudsters trick a company's employees into transferring funds to attacker-controlled bank accounts they control either via computer intrusion or by using social engineering. In Nikkei America's case, the scammers requested wire transfers using fraudulent information by posing as a Nikkei executive.
Nikkei, a large publishing company, has around 4 million print and digital subscribers, and more than 40 affiliated companies involved in publishing, broadcasting, events, database services, and the index business.
The media group acquired the Financial Times in 2015, and it currently has 37 foreign editorial bureaus and about 1,500 journalists all around the world, according to BleepingComputer.
Nikkei America also filed a damage report with both US and Hong Kong authorities. The company is in the process of recovering the stolen funds and is also ‘taking measures to fully cooperate with the investigations.
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