chat
expand_more

Vendor Impersonated in Invoice Fraud Attack

Vendor email compromise, in which a compromised vendor sends invoice or payment attacks to their customers, is growing in popularity. An easier to detect method of this attack happens when a vendor is impersonated, rather than compromised. In this attack, the...
May 20, 2020

Vendor email compromise, in which a compromised vendor sends invoice or payment attacks to their customers, is growing in popularity. An easier to detect method of this attack happens when a vendor is impersonated, rather than compromised. In this attack, the threat actor is impersonating a known vendor in order to receive payment for a fraudulent invoice.

Summary of Attack Target

  • Platform: Office 365
  • Email Security Bypassed: Proofpoint
  • Victims: Employees
  • Payload: Malicious Link
  • Technique: Impersonation

Overview of the Vendor Impersonation Attack

This organization communicates often with a known vendor. Recently, an employee from the accounting department received a message from what appeared to be the Assistant Controller / HR Administrator for this vendor. In the message, they were notified of an overdue invoice. In actuality, however, the attacker had registered a domain similar to that of the real vendor but changed the name slightly—for example, the real vendor might have been at acmehomes.com, but the attacker registered acmehome.com, omitting the s in the domain.

The email states that there is an unpaid invoice, which must be paid to an updated bank account. The attacker alleges that their financial institution has changed as a result of the current pandemic and the suspicious sender then states they will send over the updated bank information once the recipient replies.

Should the recipient have fallen victim to this attack and made the payment, the organization would have had a significant financial loss and potentially opened itself up to more fraudulent exchanges in the future from the same attacker.

Why the Vendor Impersonation Attack is Effective

This attack leverages the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse for the fraudulent payment update. The attacker injects urgency into the message by claiming there is an issue of a late unpaid invoice. The attack also impersonates a high-level employee and targets payroll and accounting employees who, because they expect legitimate invoices, may be less likely to scrutinize the sender information and attached invoices.

In addition, the attacker's email came from a domain that looked like the domain of the real company. The email domain the message was sent from was recently registered by the attackers with a slight difference. Further, the registrant information was not consistent with the real vendor, though anyone receiving the email would have had to spend a good deal of time digging into this information to discover it.

As an added element, the invoice attached to the email looked like a real invoice from the legitimate vendor, including their logo, their real address, and other real information.

Abnormal detected this fraudulent email due to to the unusual sender address and the suspicious financial request. Because the recipient had never interacted with this person, it was unusual for them to receive a financial request. Combined with the urgency of the email and the mention of the pandemic, it is clear that this email is malicious and Abnormal blocks it before it reaches inboxes.

To see how Abnormal can protect you from fraud in your supply chain, see a platform demo today.

Vendor Impersonated in Invoice Fraud Attack

See Abnormal in Action

Schedule a Demo

Get the Latest Email Security Insights

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on the latest attacks and new trends in the email threat landscape.

 

See the Abnormal Solution to the Email Security Problem

Protect your organization from the full spectrum of email attacks with Abnormal.

See a Demo
 
Integrates Insights Reporting 09 08 22

Related Posts

B Disney Attack Blog
This Disney+ scam email uses brand impersonation and personalization to send a convincing fake subscription charge notice.
Read More
B 2024 Cybersecurity Predictions
As AI becomes more prevalent in the new year, discover how our experts believe the world will change—for both good and bad.
Read More
B 11 27 23 ATO Stats
Account takeover allows threat actors to steal sign-in credentials and access an organization's network. Read some eye-popping stats about ATO cost and frequency.
Read More
B Unmasking Vendor Fraud
Learn about the techniques, tools, and technologies we use to train the models that form the backbone of our vendor fraud detection.
Read More
B ISC2
Get the latest insights from the 2023 ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, including which skills are most sought-after, how careers have changed, and how AI is affecting the industry.
Read More
B Good Bad Ugly Future of AI
Hear about positive and malicious use cases of AI and how to protect against novel threats in this recap from Chapter 3 of our Convergence of AI + Cybersecurity series.
Read More