Companies pay out billions to fake-CEO email scams

Email scammers, often pretending to be CEOs, have duped businesses into giving away at least $3.1 billion, according to new data from the FBI.

The email schemes, which trick companies into wiring funds to the hacker, continue to bedevil companies across the world, the FBI warned in a posting on Tuesday.

The amount of money they’ve tried to steal has grown by 1,300 percent since January 2015, it said.

In the U.S. alone, victims have lost $960 million to the schemes over approximately the past three years, FBI figures show. That figure reaches $3.1 billion when global data from international law enforcement and financial groups is included. The number of victims: 22,143.

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