Emails are a vital part of every modern organisation. They form the backbone of inter-company communication and are one of the most important everyday functions in the modern business world. But, like with everything else in the modern world, they can also pose a risk to your organisation.

Business Email Compromise is a scam that aims to trick businesses through emails, to be able to gain credentials and ultimately steal from your organisation. This is a dangerous prospect for any business, and making sure that you’re aware of the risk is vital.

In this article, we’re going to go over everything you need to know about Business Email Compromise, and how your organisation can protect itself from being targeted by malicious actors using this strategy to attack your business.

Understanding the Risk of Business Email Compromise

Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a highly dangerous attack that aims to specifically target businesses through email, and try to gain money or credentials from personnel within your organisation.

BEC is a social engineering attack, that uses very sophisticated impersonation attacks to pretend to be someone important to your business — for example, a CEO, vendor, or client — to make an employee give away vital information.

With this, the attacker will do extensive research to ensure that their email looks incredibly realistic, and will target specific people within your organisation. This makes it incredibly easy to fall victim to — unlike phishing which casts a wide net, these attacks are designed for the target, and so will have a lot more attention to detail.

On top of this, attackers can create more realistic graphics and even spoof email addresses, meaning that simply checking the email can sometimes just not be enough to protect you. There are other ways to protect yourself, that will be able to ensure that even in the case of a successful attack, you have other prevention methods in place.

Key Technologies in Preventing BEC

AI-Powered Email Security

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly answering a lot of questions that businesses have when it comes to using technology to its maximum potential. Part of this is security — AI can predict and prevent security threats before they happen, and the same can be said for your email security.

Using AI to be able to protect your emails will give you access to a proactive security system, that will identify impersonation attempts and point out any suspicious activity in your email inbox. This is the best way to ensure that you don’t fall victim to high-level impersonation scams like BEC and will ensure that you’re aware of anything suspicious.

MFA

If an attack succeeds, it’s important to have a stopgap in place to ensure that the attack can’t do any damage. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is vital to this, as it’s another check that needs to be passed for an attacker to get through to your information.

This means that it provides another window for an employee to be able to smell that something is suspicious — anyone asking for MFA verification is dangerous and should be treated as a threat. However, it also means that if they do get password credentials, they’ll be stopped by MFA verification.

Ultimately, MFA is vital and really easy to implement. There’s no reason not to have implemented it into your organisation already, and the benefits that MFA provides are invaluable.

The Human Firewall

The Human Firewall is the idea that the collective knowledge and intuition of your organisation’s team will be able to work together to prevent cyberattacks. After all, education is one of the most important factors in beating cyber attackers, and educating your employees will ensure that they can take action proactively.

The way to ensure this in your organisation is by training, and making sure that everyone is aware of their role when it comes to cybersecurity. This will create a security-conscious culture within your company, building up your human firewall and ensuring that everyone is aware of the security risks you face.

Email Authentication (SPF, DMARC, DKIM)

Email authentication is also vital to ensuring that your organisation is protected from BEC. The three authentication methods — SPF, DMARC, and DKIM — will help you verify the authenticity of senders, meaning that you can spot any spoofing as it happens.

While attackers can bypass authentication methods, it is a lot harder and in combination with other aforementioned techniques, it can play a core role in stopping attackers from being successful with their attacks.

Future-proofing your Email Security

As the future comes along, being able to future-proof your organisation and ensure that your email security level is high as time goes on is vital. Here are some steps that you can take to futureproof your email security —

  • Staying ahead of attackers: By keeping up with threat intelligence and taking advantage of artificial intelligence, you can ensure that you stay one step ahead of attackers at all times.
  • Multi-layered defence: Relying solely on email authentication is a dangerous game, and so combining that defence with other measures will help ensure that your defences remain impenetrable.
  • Training employees: As mentioned earlier, continuously training employees and making them aware of new threats will ensure that they remain vigilant for any new threats on the horizon.
  • Multi-Factor Authentication: Once again, MFA is the key to ensuring that if all else fails, your most important information will remain protected.

How to Get Started

Business Email Compromise is a very real threat to businesses, and you must be informed about how to stay safe. These technologies will ensure that you have the upper hand against any attackers looking to be a threat to your company.

If you’re looking to get started with email security but need support, reach out to us today. We’re here to help and will ensure that you have all the support you need to be able to protect your business, every step of the way.

Get in touch with us now and see how we can help.