How Business Email Compromise Works
Business Email Compromise (BEC) is the most costly cybercrime affecting South African businesses. The attacker does not need to hack your email server. They register a lookalike domain — clevertelsa.co.za instead of clevertel.co.za — and impersonate a trusted supplier. The email looks authentic, the invoice layout matches, and the only difference is the banking details.
The Pretoria Case
A 35-person professional services firm was defrauded of R2.3 million across four invoices over six weeks. The attacker had monitored their supplier relationship for two months before striking, timing the attack to coincide with a legitimate large project payment. By the time the fraud was detected, three of the four payments were unrecoverable.
The Technical Controls That Would Have Stopped It
Every single one of these transactions would have been flagged or blocked by a properly configured email security stack:
- DMARC enforcement: The spoofed domain had no DMARC record. Strict enforcement would have quarantined every email from it.
- Lookalike domain detection: Advanced email security tools scan for domains registered within 30 days that resemble your supplier list.
- Banking detail change alerts: Any invoice containing banking details not matching historical records triggers a review workflow.
- Dual-authorisation on payments: A finance workflow rule requiring a second approver for payments above R50 000 would have introduced a human checkpoint.
What Clevertel Email Security Includes
Our email security stack covers inbound threat filtering, DMARC/DKIM/SPF configuration and monitoring, lookalike domain alerts, and staff awareness training. Most implementations are complete within 48 hours and require no changes to your existing email provider.
The Cost of Protection vs the Cost of a Breach
Our email security service costs less per month than a single hour of forensic recovery after a breach. For any business that processes supplier invoices or receives payments by email, it is the single highest-return security investment available.