vCIO Playbook - BEC - Business Email Compromise

Understanding The BEC Threat

Your business email is the primary target for cybercriminals using phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and malware attacks. Business email compromise (BEC) occurs when cybercriminals impersonate trusted leaders to trick employees into sending money or data. These scams cost businesses millions, with small companies often unable to recover from the losses.

Unlike mass phishing emails that cast a wide net, BEC scammers do their homework. They might hack real accounts to send convincing requests or target executives directly (which is called “whaling”), but they always aim to exploit your trust.

Common Types of BEC Scams

• CEO Fraud—A scammer impersonates your CEO, sending urgent requests for large wire transfers, often with a “confidential” note. They mimic writing styles and company operations to trick employees. Many companies, like Snapchat, have lost millions this way.

• Account Compromise—Attackers break into real email accounts through stolen passwords. They monitor email traffic for weeks, then strike when a major payment is due—sometimes even hiding their activity by forwarding emails to themselves.

• Attorney Impersonation—Scammers pretend to be lawyers working on sensitive matters, like acquisitions or legal settlements, pushing employees to make hasty payments under pressure. Fake legal documents are often used to convince victims.

Common Targets of BEC

Not all employees are equally targeted in BEC scams. Attackers zero in on roles with financial authority or high-level access. Key targets include:

• Finance employees, like controllers and accounts payable staff who have banking details, payment methods, and account numbers.

• Executives, particularly CEOs and CFOs, since their requests carry weight and urgency and details about them are often publicly available.

• HR professionals with employee records like social security numbers, tax statements, contact info, and schedules.

• IT administrators, whose access to systems could help attackers dig deeper into the organization.

• New or entry-level employees, who will have a harder time verifying an email’s legitimacy. 

vCIO Playbook - Business Email Compromise

Our latest Playbook focuses on the configuration of key features within Microsoft 365 to guard against BEC attacks, each with a business-level explanation of the key controls and impact for use during client discussions. 

• Email Summary - High level summary of emails, phishing attempts, blocked emails, and risky users over the past 30 days
• Mailflow Traffic Analysis - Interative visual mailflow graph to assist with client discussion
• Email Domain Health - SPF, DIM, and DMARC settings
• Anti-Phishing Policies - assess policy implementation
• Safe Link Policies - review settings for Email, Teams, Office Apps and Allow Click-Through policies
• Safe Attachement Policies - review scanning, detection, and quarantine policies for optimal protection

Remediation & Project Plan

Similar to our other Playbooks, this BEC Playbook displays detailed results directly from the client's tenant, including a Recommended Remediation Plan and a Proposed Project to support your vCIO discussions, all brandable with your company's custom logo.

Start Using vCIO Playbooks with CloudCapsule Premium

Our vCIO Playbook library continues to grow and currently includes:

• MFA Adoption - Accelerate MFA adoption for improved posture
• License Optimization - Identify licensing opportunities & NCE renewal details
• Corporate Devices - Require corporate owned devices to sign into company resources
• Business Email Compromise - Avoid financial fraud and loss cuased by email scams and social engineering
• Suspicious Applications - Discover rogue or suspicious applications in your application inventory and prevent unauthorized registrations
• Advanced Endpoint Protection - Enroll devices into Defender for Business to protect endpoints and actively scan for vulnerabilities
• Software Vulnerabilities - Identify and remove vulnerable software on workstations
• Details Export - CIS Controls - Detailed view of the assessment through the lens of the CIS Controls and Implementation Groups
• Detailed Export - Microsoft Baseline - Detailed view for the Microsoft 365 Assessment with a security posture improvement through feature adoption and proper configuration. 

Our vCIO Playbooks are exclusively available in CloudCapsule Premium, so reach out to our team today to get started!