Imagine receiving an urgent email from your CEO asking you to wire $47,000 to close a deal before end of business today. The email looks right, the tone sounds right, and the pressure feels real. You want to help. This is exactly what attackers count on.

Business Email Compromise, or BEC, is one of the most financially devastating forms of cybercrime. The FBI reports billions lost annually—not through sophisticated hacking, but through carefully crafted emails that manipulate people into transferring money or sensitive data. No malware required. Just research, patience, and an understanding of how organizations actually work.

BEC attacks begin long before any fraudulent email is sent. Criminals spend weeks or months gathering intelligence. They study company websites, LinkedIn profiles, press releases, and social media. They learn who reports to whom, who handles finances, when executives travel, and how the organization communicates.

With this knowledge, attackers craft emails that feel authentic. They might register a domain one letter off from your company's—swapping an 'l' for a '1' or adding an extra letter most people won't notice. They'll mimic writing styles, reference real projects, and time their requests for maximum pressure. A fake CEO might email the finance director during an actual business trip: "I'm in meetings all day but need you to process this vendor payment urgently. Can you handle it? I'll explain when I'm back."

The sophistication varies. Some attackers compromise actual email accounts through phishing, making their messages genuinely come from trusted addresses. Others build elaborate scenarios involving fake lawyers, fake vendors, or fake acquisition deals. The common thread is exploiting trust and authority within organizational hierarchies.

Takeaway

BEC attacks succeed because they exploit how organizations actually function—trust in leadership, pressure to perform, and the natural desire to be helpful.

The most effective defense against BEC is simple in concept but requires discipline: verify unusual requests through a different communication channel. If you receive an email requesting a wire transfer, pick up the phone and call the requester at a number you already have—not one provided in the suspicious email. This is called out-of-band verification.

Organizations should establish clear procedures for financial transactions that cannot be bypassed regardless of who's asking or how urgent it seems. Dual authorization for transfers above certain thresholds. Mandatory callbacks for any change to vendor payment details. Documented approval chains that don't bend under pressure. These controls work precisely because they remove individual judgment from high-stakes decisions.

Technical controls help too. Email authentication protocols like DMARC, DKIM, and SPF make domain spoofing harder. Email security tools can flag messages from lookalike domains or external addresses mimicking internal ones. But technology alone isn't enough—attackers constantly adapt. The human verification step remains essential.

Takeaway

The phone call you make to verify an unusual request costs five minutes. The wire transfer you don't verify could cost your organization everything.

Technical controls and procedures matter, but culture determines whether people actually follow them. In organizations where questioning authority feels risky, employees will comply with fraudulent requests from apparent executives rather than face potential embarrassment. Attackers know this and deliberately create scenarios where verification feels awkward.

Building cultural resistance means explicitly empowering employees to verify requests without fear of seeming disrespectful or incompetent. When the CEO publicly praises the employee who delayed a legitimate urgent request to verify it, that sends a powerful message. When leadership participates in security training alongside everyone else, it signals that vigilance applies at every level.

Regular simulated BEC attempts help too—not as gotcha moments, but as practice. People who've experienced a realistic fake request in a safe environment recognize the patterns when real attacks arrive. The goal isn't catching people who fail; it's building organizational muscle memory for verification. Discuss attacks openly when they're attempted, whether successful or not. Shame keeps people silent. Openness builds collective defense.

Takeaway

Security culture isn't about making people paranoid—it's about making verification feel normal, expected, and safe to perform regardless of who's asking.

BEC attacks will continue because they exploit something that can't be patched: human nature. The desire to be helpful, the deference to authority, the pressure of urgency—these are features of functional organizations, not bugs. Attackers simply redirect them.

Your defense isn't about becoming suspicious of everyone. It's about building habits and systems that verify first and trust second. One phone call, one moment of pause, one policy that holds firm under pressure—these are what separate organizations that lose millions from those that don't.