Criminals Trick iLearningEngines AI Company into Redirecting a $250,000 Payment

AI company iLearningEngines has revealed that it’s been the likely target of a business email compromise attack in which criminals managed to redirect a $250,000 payment. 

Even though ransomware is a much more prevalent type of attack on companies today, given its constant presence in the news, it’s not as dangerous as business email compromise (BEC) attacks. In fact, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) found that BEC is 62 times more lucrative than ransomware. 

iLearningEngines sent a notification to the US Securities and Exchange Commission explaining the incident. 

“iLearningEngines, Inc. (the “Company”) recently became aware of a cybersecurity incident,” reads the notification. “The ongoing investigation has revealed that a threat actor illegally accessed the Company’s environment and certain files on its network, misdirected a $250,000 wire payment, and deleted a number of email messages. The wire payment has not been recovered.” 

The company offered no more details about the security incident, not even the date when it occurred, but did say that it enrolled the help of external cybersecurity firms to help with the forensic analysis. 

While the payment of $250,000 made by iLearningEngines is projected to have a short-term impact, it won’t affect the firm in a significant way. 

“Based on the information available to date, the Company believes that the cybersecurity incident will have a material impact on its operations during the quarter ended December 31, 2024 but does not expect the incident to have a material impact on full year 2024 results,” iLearningEngines added. 

Business email compromise attacks are not all that rare, and even famous people fall victim. For example, Barbara Corcoran, one of the business moguls who head up the judging team on US TV’s “Shark Tank” investment show, lost nearly $400,000 to an email scammer. 

More recently, a Nigerian national has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for heading a sophisticated business e-mail compromise (BEC) scheme targeting real estate transactions in the United States.