僞CEO郵件騙走全球企業20億美元

A scam in which criminals impersonate the email accounts of chief executives has cost businesses around the globe more than $2bn in little over two years, according to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

根據美國聯邦調查局(FBI)的說法，在兩年多一點的時間裏，一種由犯罪分子僞造首席執行官電子郵箱賬戶行騙的騙局，已導致全球企業損失逾20億美元。

The FBI has seen a sharp increase in “business email crime,” a simple scam that is also known as “CEO fraud”, with more than 12,000 victims affected globally.

FBI發現，“商業電子郵件犯罪”急劇增加，全球受害者超過1.2萬個。這是一種簡單的騙局，又被稱爲“冒充CEO詐騙”。

In the scam, a criminal mimics a chief executive’s email account and directs an employee to wire money to an overseas bank account. By the time the company realises it has been duped, the money is gone.

在這種騙局中，犯罪分子用僞造的首席執行官電子郵箱賬戶發郵件指示員工將錢匯往境外銀行戶頭。等到企業意識到其中有詐，資金已不翼而飛。

The average loss is $120,000 but some companies have been tricked into sending as much as $90m to offshore accounts, US authorities say.

美國當局表示，受害企業平均每家損失12萬美元，但有的企業曾被騙向境外匯了9000萬美元。

Reports of CEO fraud are accelerating. Between October 2013 and August 2015, about $1.2bn globally was lost to the scheme, the FBI said, but that loss increased by another $800m in the past six months. US authorities have traced the money involved to 108 countries.

報告遭遇此類詐騙的案件越來越多。FBI表示，2013年10月到2015年8月，全球因這種騙術蒙受的損失約爲12億美元，而過去6個月裏又增加了8億美元。美國當局已對涉案資金追蹤至108個國家。

“Criminals don’t have borders and this is a global problem,” said James Barnacle, chief of the FBI’s money laundering unit. “We’re working with our criminal investigation resources, our cyber resources, our international operations divisions — which is all our legal attachés overseas — and we’re working with foreign partners around the world to try to tackle this crime problem.”

FBI反洗錢部門主管詹姆斯•巴納克爾(James Barnacle)表示：“犯罪分子沒有國界，這是個全球問題。我們正在動用我們的刑事調查資源、我們的網絡資源、我們的國際事務部門——也就是我們所有在海外的法律專員——而且，我們還在和世界各地的外國合作伙伴合作，努力應對這個犯罪問題。”

The rise in reported CEO frauds can be partly attributed to companies detecting the crime, but it also reflects the simple nature of the scheme that can be run from anywhere around the globe.

冒充CEO詐騙案數量增加，部分可能要歸因於企業發覺了這種犯罪行爲，但它也反映出這種騙術十分簡單，可以從全球任何地方發起。

“It’s easy. All you need is a computer,” Mr Barnacle said.

巴納克爾表示：“這太容易了，你所需要的只是一臺電腦。”

Most of the offshore bank accounts in which the money ends up are located in Asia or Africa, where it can be harder for the US to gain the assistance of local authorities.

這些資金最終流向的境外銀行戶頭大多數位於亞洲或非洲，在這些地方美國可能更難得到當地政府部門的援手。

The FBI has seen similarities between different CEO fraud schemes but it is not clear if there is one dominant global ring.

FBI從不同的冒充CEO詐騙案中發現了一些相似之處，不過目前仍不清楚是否存在一個領頭的全球詐騙集團。

“We’re putting more resource to it. We’re trying to find those patterns,” Mr Barnacle said.

巴納克爾表示：“我們正向這類案件投入更多資源，試圖找出犯罪手法。”