Israel-based BEC attacks on the rise

Even though nearly three-quarters of business email compromise attacks during the past year have emerged from Nigeria, Israel has been gaining traction as a base for sophisticated BEC campaigns, as evidenced by the nearly 350 BEC attacks by an Israel-based threat operation since 2021, TechRepublic reports. Major multinational organizations have been the primary target of Israel-based BEC operations, which involved the usage of advanced social engineering techniques, including the impersonation of senior corporate leaders in charge of financial transactions, and email addresses, an Abnormal Security report showed. Attackers have sought payments of $712,000 on average, which is more than tenfold higher than average. "Email has always been (and will continue to be) a lucrative attack vector for cybercriminals. Because of this, we will likely see threat actors continue to evolve their tactics, test new approaches, and become even more targeted and sophisticated in their attempts to compromise email users," said Abnormal Security Chief Information Security Officer Mike Britton.