‘Hackers from Nigeria target global financial officers via e-mail scam’

A report from Agari has revealed that a group of hackers based in Nigeria is trying to trick thousands of top executives across the globe into sending them company funds.

The ambitious scheme, that mainly targets chief financial officers (CFO) via e-mail, is described to be on the upward swing, as Agari, a cyber-security firm, which investigated the group, has also come under attack itself.

According to CNN Business, yesterday, targets included firms in a very broad range of sectors from small businesses to the largest multinational corporations.

The attackers are carrying out an increasingly common scam known as “business email compromise (BEC)” in which they attempt to pose as a company insider, such as the CEO, requesting a money transfer to an outside account.

Agari said that the Nigerian group, which it calls “London Blue,” has developed a highly sophisticated operation to dupe money out of finance executives.

The email security firm said that during its investigation, it got hold of a list of the group’s potential targets this year that contained more than 50,000 finance executives, of which 71 per cent were CFOs.

Agari, which declined to reveal how it secured the data, other than saying it had actively engaged with the scammers, said it had shared the info with the United States (U.S.) and United Kingdom (UK) law enforcement agents.