The Problem

Email Compromise

A former CEO and senior executive leader became a public figure through her philanthropy efforts during retirement. As is common in many cases of public figure identity theft, there was information available in the public domain that could be leveraged against her.

Cybercriminals used this information to:

  • Lift a credit freeze without The Philanthropist’s knowledge
  • Perform credit card fraud
  • Execute unemployment fraud with her identity

The Philanthropist also realized that she was not receiving emails from her wealth manager as the cybercriminals had intercepted the communications, which triggered her to look into the matter. She quickly realized that the cybercriminals were making requests for wire transfers but because she had implemented dual-factor authentication on her bank accounts, those requests were thwarted.

To proactively protect her digital life and gain peace of mind, The Philanthropist reached out to BlackCloak.

BlackCloak Steps In

Within hours of an initial call with The Philanthropist, BlackCloak quickly assessed the situation and determined that The Philanthropist was a victim of business email compromise (BEC). A forensic investigation was immediately launched, uncovering that cybercriminals had been intercepting emails with important information, sending fake emails posing as The Philanthropist and her husband, and using that information to steal The Philanthropist’s identity and commit credit card fraud

The team jumped into action, implementing a two-part digital protection strategy:

Short-term: Assure account security

Long-term: Implement processes and tools to prevent future incidents

01. Short-term: Assure Account Security

To ensure the cybercriminals could no longer access any of The Philanthropist’s accounts in the short-term, complex passwords needed to be implemented across every account and dual-factor authentication would be installed.

02. Long-term: Ongoing Monitoring & Support

For long-term digital security, the BlackCloak Concierge Team provided The Philanthropist with:

  • IP scan
  • Credit monitoring
  • Identity theft and fraud protection, including insurance
  • Data broker removal services
  • Home network and botnet scanning
  • Dark Web scanning
  • Installing desktop and mobile apps
  • Device monitoring and protection for desktop and mobile devices