NIOCORP has notified the SEC of a cyberattack It was tricked to send a payment to the wrong account It informed law enforcement and tries to recover the funds
Niocorp Developments, a Canadian mineral research company operating in Nebraska, has reported having suffered a cyberattack where it lost half a million dollars.
The company confirmed the news via an 8-k report recently submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In the report filed February 14, Niocorp said it became aware of “unauthorized third-party access” to its information systems, including “parts of its email systems”. The result of this access was a “incorrectly directed supplier payment” totaling approx. $ 0.5 million.
Examination of the attack
In other words, someone managed to fool niocorp to make a payment to the wrong bank account.
This is usually done in Business E-Mail-Compromis (BEC) attacks when cyber criminals have access to an email account belonging to a high-positioned executive and uses it to trick the financial department to make the wrong payment.
Niocorp says it quickly realized what had happened and informed both federal law enforcement and certain financial institutions in an attempt to recover the money. It is unclear whether it succeeded or not. The company also said it “began to take steps” to investigate, contain, assess and remedy the attack.
Although the company believes that, apart from BEC, there were no other attacks or attempts, it still analyzes the full nature and influence of the attack.
“From the date of this filing, the company has not yet decided whether the cybersecurity incident will reasonably have a significant impact on the company’s overall financial state or its operating results,” the archiving concluded.
Niocorp Developments aims to produce niobium, scandium and titanium for industrial and green technological applications.
Via Registered
You also like
