CEO Fraud
CEO fraud is a sophisticated email scam that cybercriminals use to trick employees into transferring them money or providing them with confidential company information.
Cybercriminals send savvy emails impersonating the company CEO or other company executives and ask employees, typically in HR or accounting to help them out by sending a wire transfer. Often referred to as Business Email Compromise (BEC), this cybercrime uses spoofed or compromised email accounts to trick email recipients into acting.
CEO fraud is a social engineering technique that relies on winning the trust of the email recipient. The cybercriminals behind CEO fraud know that most people don’t look at email addresses very closely or notice minor differences in spelling.
These emails use familiar yet urgent language and make it clear that the recipient is doing the sender a big favor by helping them out. Cybercriminals prey on the human instinct to trust one another and on the desire to want to help others.