Human-centric Failures: Why BEC Survives Despite MFA
🔒 Multi-factor authentication reduces credential risk but does not stop many business email compromise (BEC) attacks, because adversaries target human decision points and process gaps rather than accounts. High-profile cases — Toyota Boshoku (2019, ≈$30M) and Arup (2024, ≈$25M) — show attackers using cloned messages and deepfakes without stealing credentials. Organizations should redesign approval workflows, require out-of-band verification for high-risk requests, run realistic BEC simulations, embed micro-learning, introduce purposeful friction and assign clear ownership of payment verification to close operational blind spots.
