Business Email Compromise at Independent Schools

(from Venable) Business email compromise (BEC) may not grab the headlines like ransomware, but it can be just as disruptive and damaging to a school's finances. Generally speaking, BEC is most often a scam that involves convincing an individual, group, or business to transfer money unwittingly into an account controlled by a fraudster, rather than to the account of a legitimate business partner. The FBI has estimated that BEC scams totaled over $43 billion globally between 2016 and 2021; one independent school lost millions in 2020. Steps to mitigate risk include: 

• Employ cybersecurity best practices
• Ensure that processes are in place to independently verify requested changes to billing/invoice accounts
• Scrutinize unexpected or odd communications
• Verify that wired/transmitted funds were received by the intended recipient