Leoni AG, Europe’s largest wires and electrical cables manufacturing company and the 4th largest company in the world, has said that it lost $44 million on online email scam by sending the funds to the wrong bank account.
According to Softpedia reports, a young woman working in the finance department of Leoni’s factory in Bistrita, Romania, received an email in mid-August claiming to have come from the company’s senior German executives.
This incident took place on August 12, and the company announced it publicly on August 16th, which made a huge drop between 5% – 7% in the stock market.
Leoni has four factories in Romania, and the Bistrita branch is the only one authorized to make money transfers. More than 75,000 employees in 32 countries work under the company. The attack Leoni underwent can be anyone under these, such as, a BEC (Business Email Compromise), whaling attack, or CEO fraud.
In Jun 2016, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reports shows that $3 billion loses since October 2013 because of BEC scam.