CYBER CRIME & CYBER SECURITY TRENDS IN AFRICA 15 CASE STUDY: BUSINESS EMAIL COMPROMISE (BEC) SCAMS One particularly successful scam is the Business E-mail Compromise (BEC). More than 400 companies worldwide are targeted with BEC scams every day. BEC scams are low-tech financial fraud in which spoofed emails from CEOs are sent to financial staff to request large money transfers. While they require little expertise and skill, the financial rewards for the fraudsters can be high. Almost 40 percent of identified victims are small to medium sized businesses. The next largest category of victim is the financial sector, at 14 percent. At least $3 billion have been lost to BEC scams in the past three years, with over 22,000 victims globally.1 The BEC scam evolved from the infamous is Nigerian 419 scams, where individuals were sent emails promising victims riches in return for a small donation to help a fictional Nigerian prince. These scammers have now moved onto targeting businesses and are using less elaborate ruses to trick victims into transferring money. Symantec examined a large number of email addresses used by the scammers and found that 46 percent have Nigerian IP addresses. The rest are operating from the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Malaysia, and Russia. 1 https://www.ic3.gov/media/2016/160614.aspx#ref1