"FBI: Criminals Using BEC Attacks to Scavenge Food Shipments"

In recent years, threat actors have often employed Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks to steal money from organizations. In a new development, cybercriminals are using these attacks to steal food shipments and ingredients from suppliers and distributors. The FBI and the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA OCI) issued an alert warning on December 16 that the attacks have been ongoing since at least the beginning of this year and have already caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses to various organizations. Although BEC is typically used to steal money, in these cases, the cybercriminals spoof emails and domains to impersonate employees of real firms to order food supplies, the two agencies stated in the joint cybersecurity statement. While the activity resembles rat scavenging, the intent of these thefts is often to repackage and resell the stolen food items without respect for safety and sanitation regulations. The advisory cited several instances, the most recent dating back to February, in which businesses were tricked. In one case in August, a food distributor got an email request for two full truckloads of milk supposedly from the CFO of a multinational snack and beverage company. The attacker used the actual name of the CFO but had an email address containing an extra letter in the domain name than that of the real organization. The food distributor fell victim to the scam and was required to pay their supplier over $160,000 for the fake shipment. A food manufacturer lost over $600,000 in February after receiving and fulfilling orders for whole milk powder and nonfat dry milk from four fake organizations. In each instance, the attackers placed orders using real employee names and emails with small domain name changes belonging to legitimate firms. This article continues to discuss the cybercriminals performing BEC attacks to steal food shipments and ingredients from suppliers and distributors. 

Dark Reading reports "FBI: Criminals Using BEC Attacks to Scavenge Food Shipments"