BEC ransomware menace on the rise, PwC warns

BEC, which is majorly impersonation of executives, aims to get an employee, customer, or vendor to transfer funds or sensitive information to the phisher. Phisher is someone who tries to obtain financial or other confidential information from Internet users, typically by sending an email that looks as if it is from a legitimate organisation, usually a financial institution, but contains a link to a fake website that replicates the real one.

According to PwC representatives, globally the menace would cost businesses by the end of 2018, USD 9 billion in losses, moving from USD 5.3 billion in 2017 to USD 9 billion by end of 2018.

Moreover, ransomware saw 2,370% growth rate in the last two years, where people and organization lost USD 5.3 billion since 2013 and 40,000 incidents were reported between October 2013 and December 2016.

To fight this type of crime, companies are advised to establish enhanced fraud detection and analytics; enforce payment controls; train employees to scrutinize emails; implement new authentication techniques and deploy threat intelligence.