When it comes to BEC scams attackers aren't only getting away with money. While cybercriminals were originally just keen on tricking execs into transferring money into a mule account, they've expanded over the years and now make off with personal information, along with tax data, like W-2s.

Researchers with Kaspersky Lab said last summer they've seen over 500 companies in 50 countries get hit with one BEC campaign, reportedly originating in Nigeria. Attackers managed to exfiltrate technical drawings, network diagrams, cost estimates, and project plans from victims. According to the firm screenshots of diagrams, mockups of electrical and information networks, and Autodesk AutoCAD projects were spotted on one command and control server. In that campaign operators, engineers, designers and architects, in addition to executives, from the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Germany, and India, were hit according to researchers.

An unrelated Nigerian hacking group, Gold Galleon, almost made off with $3.9 million from the maritime shipping industry between June 2017 and January 2018 before it was red flagged by Dell Secureworks last month. The threat actors usually average $6.7 million per year according to researchers, who unveiled their research at this year’s RSA Conference in San Francisco.

The FBI said Monday that most BEC scams were linked to either romance, lottery, employment, or rental opportunities. Researchers from Flashpoint echoed those sentiments this week noting that a large swathe of BEC scams have increasingly become romance-based. Ronnie Tokazowski, a senior malware analyst with the firm, said Monday that a growing number of executives - singles, divorcées, and the widowed - have been duped into sending money to lovers in disguise.

“One dating script … dates back to 2010 and has been used as recently as this March, with more than 1,600 fake posts meant to lure unsuspecting users into phony relationships,” Tokazowski wrote of one campaign.