An accountant opens her mailbox in the morning. There is an email from her long-standing IT service provider – with an invoice for €14,800 attached. The IBAN looks strange, but a short note in the document explains: “Please note our new bank details.” She transfers the amount. Three weeks later, the real supplier sends the first reminder for the invoice – because the money was transferred to the wrong account. To an account abroad. The money is gone, irretrievably. Scenarios like this play out every day in companies around the world. This type of attack has a name: invoice fraud, a sub-form of what is known as Business Email Compromise (BEC). What is often overlooked is that there are always two victims. The recipient who transfers the money and the company whose identity was misused for the attack – and which may not even notice.
