What does BEC Stand for?

We’ll Make Etymology of Acronym-Originated Tech Speak Interesting… and Useful.

Yes, it’s still the year of the tiger – a year of supposed unbound prosperity. But with the stock market plunging, and cybercrime flourishing, I thought it might be nice to forget about tigers and put on another hat, one of an etymologist.

As an etymologist, one who studies the origins of words, I thought I would think about some of the new vocabulary that recently crossed my (electronic) desk.

I keep seeing this work “BEC” popping up. It sort of reminds me of BIC, the 1980’s pocket propane lighter company that expanded into making windsurfers. Weird combination. But no BEC appears not to be a misspelling of the French company’s name, BIC.

With a bit of research, I came across the FBI’s definition of BEC. BIC, BEC, FBI… what a love for acronyms.

BEC stands for “Business Email Compromise”, which, it turns out, is a hydra of a cybercrime in that it has many ways that it plays out, but the end result is the cybercriminal intercepting email between two parties to a transaction (e.g., sender of an invoice and payor), and cuts the invoice sender out of the communication with the payor, until the payor pays what turns out to be an altered invoice; funds routing to the cybercriminal. Wow, what a mouthful.

BEC is, however, the world’s most lucrative cybercrime, with more than $2 billion being irretrievably mis-wired per year, in increments of $10K to 250K per “mistake”. There are lazy BEC’ers and very sophisticated criminal gang BEC’ers. The latter are quite tricky to spot and very successful.

The challenge with BEC, is it is complicated to explain what is going on, and each of the hydra heads of this cybercrime need their own explanation. It makes even a hydra’s head – or all of them — spin.

Perhaps the antidote to the crime can be one with an equally intriguing word. It turns out, the best way – and in some instances, the only way to pre-empt this cybercrime is with RMail’s PRE-Crime™ targeted attack defense tech, which empowers you with the ability to visualize who – which email accounts – cybercriminals are presently eavesdropping on, whether your staff or their recipient’s inbox, to pre-empt mis-wiring funds.

Back to my etymology. PRE-Crime appears to come from what essentially this technology does. PRE-empt a specific cyberCRIME (a/k/a PRE-Crime).

Even better than continuing on with the bland study of word origin, let’s get the experts in, to educate you on the poison (BEC) and the antidote (PRE-Crime).

You’re in luck! We’ve arranged for Osterman Research, the world’s leading tech analyst for this type of cybercrime, to provide a free session to explain how normal email security gateway servers have left open a back door for BEC to slip through.

Most of the cyber lures that lead to mis-wires are occurring due to the cybercriminal eavesdropping on YOUR RECIPIENT’S email account. Sure, if inbound to you, you or your email filters might catch it. But what about what you send to your clients? If their account is eavesdropped on, they may pay your invoice to the cybercriminal, thinking it is you. You’ll never know until it is too late, as the cybercriminal cuts you out of the communication loop.

I’ve said too much. Heads are spinning. Register here for the Osterman Research October 5 webinar (CLICK). This is one you’re going to want to attend and invite your IT, HR, Payments, and other key ops staff to listen in.

See you there, October 5th.

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