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Nueces County fell victim to multiple cyberattacks, costing millions. The Better Business Bureau warns of rising BEC schemes targeting businesses. Urgent payment requests and unverified changes are red flags. Protect your information! #cybersecurity #scamalert #BECscam #NuecesCounty #databreach
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I'm Michaela Chavez, your Sunrise
0:02
Neighborhood News reporter in Noises
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County. In July, Noises County fell
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victim to five cyber attacks. Three of
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those costing the county around $2
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million. Now, the sheriff's office is
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saying this looks like a BEC scheme, a
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scam that's grown more common across the
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Coastal Bend. I spoke with Katie Galan
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at the Better Business Bureau. She says
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BEC schemes are one of the top three
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major scams that targets businesses or
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entities. The first, bill pay. That's
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when someone in charge of paying bills
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is too busy to doublech checkck invoices
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and just paste them.
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So, if you're a restaurant, maybe it's
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um you know, food supplies or pans or
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things like that. So, they try to send
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it send invoices for things that that
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organization or business would actually
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be using.
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Galan says that small businesses are
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typically hit with this type of scam.
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They try to target entities or
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organizations that are maybe
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understaffed.
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The second fishing emails. Staff members
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receive an email, click a link, and the
0:55
fraud link will start installing malware
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that gives the scammer access to login
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and passwords.
1:00
So, if we are talking a city or county
1:03
entity, then we can be talking about um
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you know, AC information that they can
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access, different login information to
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get them into certain portals.
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And the third, the one Newasis County
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may have fallen for, the BC scam, also
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known as business email compromise.
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Scammers pretend to be a business or
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vendor that the entity already works
1:23
with and asks to get their banking
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information changed, sending money
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straight to the fraudster.
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If they are emailing you that
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information, that's a big red flag.
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Nobody wants their bank account, you
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know, information shared in an email or
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text message.
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Red flags include urgent payment
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requests or pressure to move quickly.
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You can always verify any changes by
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calling the organization or vendor
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that's supposedly sending you the
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request. On that same note, don't call
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the number that they provide you, but go
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to your official records or an official
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website, find the phone number that way,
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and give them a call.
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The reality is anyone can fall victim to
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a scam.
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Since this happened, I can't tell you
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all the phone calls I receive from
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cities, counties, business people here
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locally that have had this exact same
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thing happen.
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But it happens right here in the Coastal
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Bin. There's so much so much money that
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is being lost and so much information
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that is being compromised that it is um
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you know it's very alarming. So we
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definitely need to make sure that we are
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sharing this information as much as
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possible
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moving forward. County leaders say the
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focus is now on prevention.
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This gave us a very big wakeup call. We
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are not continuing with our EFT
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transactions. They're just paper checks
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and and will be for a little while. The
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BBB urges you to report any scams to
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their website, but I'll have that all
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for you on my digital article online.
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From there, they'll pass that
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information along to law enforcement to
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help warn others and keep them safe in
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Oasis County. I'm your Sunrise
2:44
Neighborhood News reporter, Michaela
2:45
Chavez, Chris Sunrise.
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#Computers & Electronics
#Local News