FBI: Business e-mail scam losses top $3 billion, a 1,300% increase in since Jan.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) this week said the scourge it calls the Business Email Compromise continues to rack-up victims and money – over $3 billion in losses so far.

The BEC scam is typically carried out by compromising legitimate business e-mail accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion to conduct unauthorized transfers of funds, the IC3 stated.

The impact of the scam is detailed in the IC3 stats released this week including:

• Since January 2015, there has been a 1,300% increase in identified losses.
• Domestic and international victims: 14,302 in US; 22,143 worldwide
• Combined dollar loss: $960,708,616 in US; $3,086,250,090 worldwide.
• Victims continue to deal in a wide variety of goods and services, indicating a specific sector does not seem to be targeted.