to achieve a specific outcome which negatively impacts the target organization. Examples include invoice scams and spear phishing spoof attacks which are designed to gather data for other criminal activities. A business deceived by an email spoof can suffer additional financial, business continuity and reputational damage: fake emails are a favored route for ransomware that can stop operations unless a ransom is paid; consumer privacy breaches can also be enabled. Typically, an attack targets specific employee roles within an organization by sending a spoof email (or series of spoof emails) which fraudulently represent a senior colleague (CEO or similar) or a trusted customer. (This type of attack is known as spear phishing). The email will issue instructions, such as approving payments or releasing client data. The emails often use social engineering to trick the victim into making money transfers to the bank account of the fraudster. The worldwide financial impact is large. The United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation recorded $26 billion of US and international losses associated with BEC attacks between June 2016 and July 2019. Incidents Dublin Zoo lost €130,000 in such a scam in 2017 - a total of €500,000 was taken, though most was recovered. The Austrian aerospace firm FACC AG was defrauded of 42 million euros ($47 million) through an attack in February 2016 - and subsequently fired both the CFO and CEO. Te Wananga o Aotearoa in New Zealand was defrauded of $120,000 (NZD). The New Zealand Fire Service was scammed out of $52,000 in 2015. Ubiquiti Networks lost $46.7 million through such a scam in 2015. Save the Children USA was the victim of a $1 million cyberscam in 2017. Australian organisations that reported business email compromise attacks on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission suffered approximately $2,800,000 (AUD) in financial losses for the 2018 year. In 2013, Evaldas Rimasauskas and his employees sent thousands of fraud emails to get access to companies email systems. See also that may be compromised References External links Email Internet terminology Practical jokes Spamming Cybercrime Confidence tricks Organized crime activity Social engineering (computer security) Types of cyberattacks Deception Fraud