Phishing scam hits cricket! ICC loses Rs. 20 crore

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has been hit by an phishing scam! The apex international cricketing body which overlooks and administers cricket across the world lost a whopping amount of money - around US $2.5 million which roughly translates to Rs. 20 crore, ESPNcricinfo reports. However, the exact amount of loss in this online scam has not been revealed, but the report confirms that the scam wasv initiated in the USA in 2022. Scammers used Business Email Compromise (BEC) technique to transfer the amount from ICC. It is also known as email account compromise scam. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) mentions it as "one of the most financially damaging online crimes" of all!

What is a BEC scam? In this type of phishing scam, companies or individuals are duped into making wire transfers of money under the belief that they are doing so legitimately. Scammers use an email to trick someone into sending money. "BEC scams are initiated when a victim receives false wire instruction from a criminal attempting to redirect legitimate payments to a bank account controlled by fraudsters," FBI explained about BEC scams. Here, the scammer poses as a trusted person and asks for a fake bill to be paid.

How ICC became a victim of phishing

Shockingly, fraudsters not only scammed ICC once, but the cricket body fell victim four times! The reports say that officials of the ICC did not even suspect being a victim of the online fraud. The fraud was detected on January 18. However, it still hasn’t been revealed how fraudsters transferred such a huge amount of money from the ICC account. Whether they were in direct touch with officials at the head office of ICC in Dubai or if they targeted any vendor or consultant of ICC.

The ESPNcricinfo report further says that the ICC is silent on the incident. “It has reported the suspected fraud to law enforcement agencies in the USA and an investigation is underway,” the report added.