Business email compromise

Business email compromise attacks are a form of cyber crime which use email fraud to attack commercial, government and non-profit organizations to achieve a specific outcome which negatively impacts the target organization. Examples include invoice scams and spear phishing spoof attacks which are designed to gather data for other criminal activities. Consumer privacy breaches often occur as a result of business email compromise attack. 
Typically an attack targets specific employee roles within an organization by sending a spoof email (or series of spoof emails) which fraudulently represent a senior colleague (CEO or similar) or a trusted customer. The email will issue instructions, such as approving payments or releasing client data. The emails often use social engineering to trick the victim into making money transfers to the bank account of the fraudster.
The worldwide financial impact is large. The United States's Federal Bureau of Investigation recorded $26 billion of US and international losses associated with BEC attacks between June 2017 and July 2019.