Texas-based carbon black company Orion has informed its investors that it lost a staggering $60 million due to falling victim to a criminal scheme. This scheme led to multiple fraudulent outbound wire transfers to accounts controlled by unknown third parties.
No specific details were disclosed, but these schemes typically involve fraudsters deceiving employees of a company, often in financial roles or with access to the executive level, to initiate bank transfers of company funds to accounts controlled by the fraudsters. Such schemes may include email account hacking, with fraudsters sending fake instructions from executives' accounts to staff, or even using deepfakes to deceive unaware employees into transferring funds.
The FBI has reported that these scams have become a significant issue, amounting to billions of dollars in losses for companies of all sizes. Fortunately, there are simple and effective ways to safeguard against email scams.
