Cybersecurity activity around business email compromise (BEC) spiked between April 2022 and April 2023, with over 150,000 daily attempts, on average, detected by the Microsoft Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU).
The findings were highlighted in the latest edition of Microsoft’s Cyber Signals, a cyberthreat intelligence report that spotlights security trends and insights gathered from Microsoft’s 43 trillion security signals and 8,500 security experts.
“BEC attacks stand apart in the cybercrime industry for their emphasis on social engineering and the art of deception,” said Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president of security, in a blog post. “Successful BEC attacks cost organizations hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”