U.S. banks and other institutions flagged nearly $900 million worth of business-email-compromise attacks against the real estate industry and real estate customers in 2020 and 2021, federal officials disclosed after reviewing 2,300 suspicious activity reports. Business email compromise, or BEC, consists of criminals hacking into the emails of a business or organization that routinely conducts large wire transfers and diverting funds to accounts they control, often by impersonating an employee or other trusted individual. In one classic version, a scammer posing as the president or chief executive of a company will email employees with urgent instructions to wire a large...
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a Financial Trend Analysis that reviews threats in the real estate sector, including business email compromise schemes.
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