Italy- Maire Tecnimont SpA

Italy- Maire Tecnimont SpAhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-mairetecnimont-india-fraud/chinese-group-swindles-18-5-million-from-indian-arm-of-italian-company-economic-times-idUSKCN1P40KE

Exploit: Social engineering and business email compromise (BEC).Maire Tecnimont SpA: Construction engineering company.

Risk to Small Business: 2.111 = Severe: This elaborate cyber fraud involved staging a “confidential acquisition” and impersonating the CEO in order to persuade the head of India’s operations to transfer funds amounting to $18.5M. Although it was an isolated incident, such an attack demonstrates the lack of overall awareness surrounding BEC scams and may serve as impetus for other hackers to try infiltrating the company’s networks. Also, it is entirely possible that the hackers were monitoring day-to-day business operations for months in advance to prepare for the sophisticated scheme, which means that there may be other undiscovered breaches at play.

Individual Risk: 3 = Moderate: No personal information was breached.

Customers Impacted: N/A.How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: Increasing awareness of social engineering fraud and BEC is a best practice all organizations should implement. Hackers are growing increasingly sophisticated and convincing in their efforts to fool executives into handing over funds or information, which means that we must counter by incorporating training courses or multi-factor authentication processes to prevent attacks.ID Agent to the Rescue: Backed by ID Agent’s $1 million identity theft restoration policy, SpotLight ID allows MSPs’ clients can proactively protect employees and customers while enhancing their overall cybersecurity awareness. Learn more: https://www.idagent.com/identity-monitoring-programs.

Risk Levels:1 - 1.5 = Extreme Risk1.51 - 2.49 = Severe Risk2.5 - 3 = Moderate Risk*The risk score is calculated using a formula that considers a wide range of factors related to the assessed breach.