Japanese Media firm Nikkei, which owns the Financial Times, was scammed out of $29 million dollars in September of this year because a staff member of its US subsidiary fell for what seems to have been a textbook Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack, the company admitted.
In a statement, Nikkei said that “an employee of Nikkei America, Inc. … transferred approximately $29m Nikkei America funds based on fraudulent instructions by a malicious third party who purported to be a management executive of Nikkei.” Nikkei America launched an investigation in to the incident “shortly after” it occurred, and also reported it to the authorities in the US and Hong Kong. The firm says that it is “taking immediate measures to preserve and recover the funds that have been transferred, and taking measures to fully cooperate with the investigations.”
Read more: Nikkei Hit in $29m BEC Scam