How to Prevent Business Email CompromiseMy Top Tips to Stop BEC Attacks Before They Happen

David DeCorte | November 25, 2025 | 4 min read

How to Prevent Business Email Compromise

My Best Tips to Prevent BEC Attacks

As mentioned in our opening sections, business compromise attacks aren’t going away. These scams are far too lucrative to simply fade into the woodwork. This can only mean that businesses and their employees must be vigilant and prepared to face the issue head-on.

How do you do this effectively without a drop in revenue or productivity, though? It’s important to have a multilayer strategy that involves multi-factor authentication, fraud awareness training, detail-oriented critical thinking, and other best practices.

Business Email Compromise

The FBI calls business email compromise “the $26 billion dollar scam.” How is that possible? This article will take a close look at BEC scams to explain what they are, why they’re such an expensive problem, and also how you and your employees might be targeted.

Knowledge Guide

What About Security Tools Offered by Email Clients?

One option is to take advantage of the security tools offered by email clients. These can block rudimentary attacks perpetrated via spam or generic, mass phishing attacks. But, there are a lot of other tactics that legacy email security practices won’t intercept:

Which Fraud Tactics Do Legacy Email Security Technologies Prevent?

	Delivery	Techniques	Legacy Email Controls
Spam	Mass email	N/A
Mass phishing	Mass email	Mass-produced phishing kits
VIP impersonation	Gmail/Yahoo, lookalike domains	Social engineering
Payoll fraud	Gmail/Yahoo, lookalike domains	Impersonation, social engineering
Vendor fraud	Email from compromised account	Impersonation, social engineering
Credential phishing	Email from compromised account, Gmail/Yahoo	Redirects, brand impersonation for login pages, 0-day domains
Account takeover	Credential phishing attack	Auto-forwarding rules, lateral movement

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Other Tools & Tactics to Consider

A multi-tiered fraud prevention strategy is the only effective solution against fraud. We recommend that you adopt the following practices to counter BEC attacks before they start:

Think Critically

Odds are, if targets really considered the logical viability of an executive request for funds, many acts of BEC fraud might be prevented. Train staff to exercise critical thinking and use their best judgment with these kinds of requests. If something doesn’t look right… it probably isn’t.

Report Odd Requests

Anyone asking for unusual information, such as employee emails, addresses, etc., should be reported immediately to your in-house security team. Examples of unusual requests to watch for include:

Requests not to check in with other employees or managers
Requests to avoid normal processing or data chain channels
Requests asking for personal information
Requests asking for ANY amount of money to be transferred

Pay Attention to Details

Do the emails have strange times and dates attached to them? Are there obvious language-related grammatical errors? Is the employee’s name or credentials misapplied or misspelled? Does the ‘reply to’ line differ from one associated with the sender? All of these things can help identify potential acts of fraud before they occur.

Mandate Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

SMS-based one-time codes or authenticator app-based codes can help prevent unauthorized access to emails and internal systems. Requiring your staff and customers to turn on MFA protection will make it far more difficult for technically unsophisticated scammers to take over existing accounts.

Use Secondary Verification Channels

As mentioned before, you should always verify wire or ACH instructions via established secondary channels. Best practice dictates that verification should be performed live; for example, over the phone, a video call, or in-person. Do not rely on unconfirmed instructions provided through email, even if the message and sending domain appears legitimate.

Invest in Fraud Awareness Training

Educate your staff on common phishing and BEC fraud tactics through annual (or if possible, quarterly) fraud awareness seminars. Train employees to look out for red flags, test fraud resilience through regular simulated phishing attacks, and establish a clear process for reporting potential scams.

Implement Strong Email Security Measures

Technical email security is also vital. Protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC help authenticate your outgoing emails, which makes your domain more difficult to spoof. Properly setting these up tells recipient servers that emails from your address are legitimate and can prevent fraudsters from successfully carrying out BEC scams by impersonating executives or staff.

Ask for Help When Unsure

Remember: security always trumps urgency. Make sure your employees know that you will never penalize them for requesting verification when something doesn’t look or feel right to them. After all, that second thought could save your business millions.

Important!

Your employees should not have access to monetary accounts without effective safeguards in place. For example, if a CEO suddenly emails an accounts payable employee to ask that funds be transferred under any circumstances, it might be wise to ensure that the email is approved by the CEO or through various personnel before funds can be transferred.

Diversify Your Fraud Prevention

Fraud isn’t a static problem. To best protect your business from one form of fraud, it’s a good idea to work to prevent as many types as possible by deploying fraud detection tools that work together to stop fraud before it starts.

Merchants need to stay a step ahead of fraud to be effective at protecting their businesses. They have to always anticipate where criminals might strike next. The good news: they don’t have to do it alone.

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Don’t lose another penny to fraud and chargebacks. Contact us today to learn more about our solutions and how Chargebacks911 can help optimize your current fraud management efforts.