Nikkei News Agency transfers $29 million to scammers

Recently, Nikkei has submitted damage reports to the US and Hong Kong investigative agencies. The Nikkei is the mainstream economic media organization in Japan and the owner of the Financial Times. It has recently acknowledged the unfortunate business e-mail compromise (BEC) attack.

BEC is a cybercrime scam where cybercriminals invade the company’s e-mail address, tricking them into transferring large sums of money to bank accounts held by malicious elements; or scammers sending fake e-mails to persuade victims to go to their bank account to conduct wire transfers.

The Nikkei issued an official statement explaining that in a cyber scam, an employee of a US subsidiary mistakenly transferred money under a fraudulent order from a malicious third party, causing the company to lose $29 million. Headquartered in Tokyo, Nikkei is a data provider and TB broadcast and news publishing company.

The company’s official statement stated that the wrong transfer occurred at the end of September 2019, when an employee of the Nikkei company in the US transferred funds to a liar who claimed to be the Nikkei executive. Approximately $29 million in funds were transferred from the Nikkei US Fund.

The Nikkei quickly realized that he was a victim of cyber fraud. After the lawyer identified the details behind the attack, the company submitted damage reports to investigative agencies in the United States and Hong Kong.

Nikkei is not the only big company that has been tricked into transferring large sums of money to cybercriminals. Previously, companies like Facebook and Google experienced the same incident. In the incident, deceiving Google and Facebook was a Lithuanian who pretended to be a well-known Asian company employee. The scammer used phishing emails to collect wire transfer information and other relevant details, making his transfer requirements seem more credible, and he eventually lied to the two companies for $100 million.