A hacker has stolen £700,000 from a British energy company by rerouting a payment

British oil and gas company Zephyr Energy said someone stole £700,000 (nearly $1 million) from one of its US subsidiaries by redirecting a payment intended for a contractor to an account controlled by hackers.

In a regulatory filing with the London Stock Exchange on Thursday, the company said it was “working with banks and corresponding consultants to attempt to recover the transferred funds.”

While the company did not say how the incident occurred, hackers are known to break into email inboxes or accounting systems and use that access to change the bank account and point numbers during the process of paying someone or scanning a bill. Known as commercial email compromise attacks, the FBI said in its latest annual report on online cybercrime published earlier in April that such attacks remain one of the most significant sources of financial losses, with victim losses totaling more than $3 billion through 2025.

Zephyr says the incident has been contained and its operations are running normally.

As for the attack itself, the company said it used “industry standard practices” for its technology and payment platforms, but said it implemented “additional layers of security” following the incident.

A Zephyr spokesman did not respond to an email requesting comment on the incident.

(via Record)