State and local governments have been hammered with business email compromise (BEC) attacks over the past few years and the onslaught does not appear to be abating.

Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a Private Industry Notification to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments that they are being targeted by BEC attackers. The FBI noted that it is seeing an increase in these attacks, which have caused losses ranging between $10,000 and $4 million.

According to the FBI, state and local governments are low hanging fruit that scammers target because they have inadequate resources and cybersecurity controls. The FBI cites two risks as contributing to these attacks: the move to remote working and the failure to provide sufficient training to the workforce.

The FBI urged all members of the workforce to receive security awareness training, to learn how BEC attacks occur, and how to spot phishing and fraudulent emails. The FBI further suggested that additional measures for state and local governments to adopt include multi-factor authentication on email accounts, blocking automatic email forwarding, monitoring email Exchange servers for configuration changes, enabling alerts for suspicious activity (including foreign IP address logins), adding banners from external sources, and using filtering service (spam filter) as well as internal phishing tests. The FBI Alert is worth a read and can be accessed here.

Photo of Linn Foster Freedman Linn Foster Freedman

Linn Freedman practices in data privacy and security law, cybersecurity, and complex litigation. She is a member of the Business Litigation Group and the Financial Services Cyber-Compliance Team, and chairs the firm’s Data Privacy and Security and Artificial Intelligence Teams. Linn focuses her…

Linn Freedman practices in data privacy and security law, cybersecurity, and complex litigation. She is a member of the Business Litigation Group and the Financial Services Cyber-Compliance Team, and chairs the firm’s Data Privacy and Security and Artificial Intelligence Teams. Linn focuses her practice on compliance with all state and federal privacy and security laws and regulations. She counsels a range of public and private clients from industries such as construction, education, health care, insurance, manufacturing, real estate, utilities and critical infrastructure, marine and charitable organizations, on state and federal data privacy and security investigations, as well as emergency data breach response and mitigation. Linn is an Adjunct Professor of the Practice of Cybersecurity at Brown University and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law.  Prior to joining the firm, Linn served as assistant attorney general and deputy chief of the Civil Division of the Attorney General’s Office for the State of Rhode Island. She earned her J.D. from Loyola University School of Law and her B.A., with honors, in American Studies from Newcomb College of Tulane University. She is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Read her full rc.com bio here.