Payments fraud reached a new high in 2018, according to the recent 2019 AFP Payments Fraud Survey, with 82% of companies reporting they were targets. The survey found that last year alone, 80% of organizations experienced business email compromise (BEC), with 54% reporting financial loss as a result.
BEC is an exploit in which an attacker gains access to a corporate email account and spoofs the owner’s identity to defraud the company, its employees, or customers of money.
A majority of BEC scams targeted checks (70%), followed by wire transfers (43%). Organizations that experienced check fraud totaled 70%, a slight decrease from 2017, and 64% of payments fraud resulted from actions of an individual outside the organization.