Business Email Compromise

A form of fraud in which the offender compromises or spoofs a legitimate business email account, most often belonging to a company executive or a trusted vendor, in order to deceive an employee into making an unauthorized wire transfer of funds or divulging sensitive company information, typically by directing the transfer to an account the offender controls under the guise of a routine and time sensitive business transaction. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has documented it as one of the most financially damaging categories of cyber-enabled fraud reported to its Internet Crime Complaint Center, distinguished from ordinary phishing by its reliance on detailed research into a specific target organization's personnel, vendors and typical transaction patterns rather than a mass, indiscriminate message.