Business email compromise (BEC) even more dangerous than SMS scams

THE OCBC SMS fraud, which resulted in some 470 customers losing at least S$8.5 million, serves as yet another reminder that phishing scams are as dangerous as sophisticated malware attacks.

Phishing - where hackers use fraudulent messages to trick victims into giving away sensitive information or installing malicious software - is the most common method deployed to steal money and information. Not just individuals but organisations have also regularly fallen prey to these scams in what is known as business email compromise (BEC) - one of the less talked about phishing techniques used by criminals.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), while BEC accounted for only 7 per cent of all phishing scams globally, in monetary terms it resulted in a combined loss of US$26 billion between 2016 and 2019. A Singapore SingCert notification in June last year noted an increasing trend of BEC scams. In 2019, the Singapore police received at least 90 reports of BEC involving loss of some S$987,000.