A spear phishing attack in November has resulted in the Waterloo Brewery Company losing a total of $2.1 million in fraudulent wire transfers. Although the brewery believes that their system was not breached and no personal data is at risk, the financial toll was immensely heavy. Fraudsters impersonating a creditor tricked an employee into responding to emails requesting wire transfers. The emails were said to look genuine and even had company invoices attached. Remediation has begun and the brewery has taken appropriate steps to notify the proper authorities. While initiating new protocols and internal systems, Waterloo Brewery Company is now trying to recover the lost funds, however there is no guarantee and the attempt could be in vain.
Social engineering cyber attacks are tactics used by cyber criminals as they imitate a trusted source to interact with and manipulate their victim into giving them confidential information. This usually involves breaking security protocol and the victim is none the wiser until it is too late. In cases similar to the Waterloo Brewing Company’s phishing attack, SMBs with layered security best practices can help to filter out fraudulent impostors. Higher security protocols and even awareness training can lead to a lower chance of human error that makes situations like these possible and sometimes they can even prevent them from happening at all. The bottom line is that SMBs need to employ higher standards of employee awareness along with advanced email security and activity monitoring in order to prevent attacks like this before they begin.