Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) has seized 17 malicious domains used by scammers in a business email compromise (BEC) campaign targeting the company’s clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The domains captured by Microsoft were so-called “homoglyph” domains, which were registered as legitimate businesses and allowed fraudsters to pose as companies while communicating with their customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the complaint filed by Microsoft last week, they used the domains registered via NameSilo LLC and KS Domains Ltd. \/ Key-Systems GmbH as a malicious infrastructure in BEC attacks on Office 365 customers and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Microsoft, the criminals behind this campaign are “part of a massive network that appears to be based out of West Africa” and have mainly targeted North American small businesses operating in multiple industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is not the first time that Microsoft has seen such incidents. In the past, Microsoft 365 Defender researchers disrupted the cloud-based infrastructure used by another massive BEC campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some cases, the methods of BEC fraudsters seem to lack sophistication, and their phishing emails may look distinctly malicious to some. BEC attacks are behind the record-breaking financial losses since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The FBI’s annual report on cybercrime lists a record $1.8 billion in losses reported last year alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March, the FBI also warned of BEC attacks increasingly targeting U.S. state, local, tribal and territorial government units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other warnings sent out last year, the FBI warned of BEC scammers abusing automatic email forwarding and cloud email services such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google G Suite in their criminal activities.<\/p>\n\n\n