A MediaPost scam column says business email scams hit companies hardest as AI writes fake emails that sound real, so one bad payment request can cost real money.
Scammers who pretend to be a boss or a vendor are getting a boost from artificial intelligence, and businesses are taking the worst of it. A MediaPost scam column reports that victims of business email compromise are hit hardest by AI-assisted email fraud.
Business email compromise is a simple trick. A crook poses as someone you trust, such as a boss or a supplier, and asks for money to be sent. What is new is how the email reads. AI can write fake messages that sound natural and professional. That means old warning signs, like typos and clumsy wording, matter much less than they used to.
Small and mid-size businesses are the main targets named in the report. So are finance and accounting staff, and anyone who pays invoices or approves wire transfers by email. If part of your job is moving money, one convincing fake can cost real cash.
The steps in the alert box above cover the basics. The core idea is to confirm any payment request through a channel the scammer does not control, such as a phone call to a number you already have.
The material available is a short summary of the column, so it does not say how much money has been lost or how many companies are affected. It also does not name specific scams or tools. Until more detail appears, the safe habit is to treat every new payment request as unconfirmed until a person verifies it.
Before paying any new invoice or changing bank details, call a known number to confirm, no matter how real the email sounds.
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