Business email compromise is when a criminal gets into, or imitates, a mailbox to redirect payments. For San Francisco firms that send invoices, pay vendors or move client funds by wire, one convincing email can cost more than a year of IT.
Who gets targeted in San Francisco
Financial and venture firms in the Financial District need strong email security and documented controls. Law firms and nonprofits need secure document access for staff who work from home and office. Life sciences companies in Mission Bay and South San Francisco handle sensitive research data.
Firms like these send and receive payments by email every week, which is exactly what attackers look for.
How mailbox takeovers start
A stolen password, a fake login page or a look-alike domain lets an attacker read mail, set hidden forwarding rules and send payment requests that look real.
Locking down Microsoft 365
Multi-factor authentication, conditional access, safe sign-in settings and mail flow rules close the common ways in. Filtering catches look-alike domains and malicious links before they reach the inbox.
California data rules to know
California’s privacy laws, including the CCPA, give residents rights over their personal information and raise the stakes of a breach.
A hacked mailbox often holds customer records, so an email takeover can become a reportable breach.
Watching for takeover signs
We monitor for suspicious sign-ins, new forwarding rules, account changes and unusual sending patterns. During office hours an engineer acts on alerts by locking the account, resetting credentials and checking what was sent.
Office hours in San Francisco
Office hours for San Francisco clients are Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific. Email security services is part of full managed IT for San Francisco clients, delivered remote-first with on-site help coordinated when it is needed.
Read more about email security services or see all IT services in San Francisco.