US minerals company says crooks broke into email and helped themselves to $500K

A NASDAQ-listed US minerals company says cybercriminals broke into its systems on Valentine's Day and paid themselves around $500,000 – money earmarked for a vendor. In what sounds like a textbook business email compromise (BEC) scheme, NioCorp Developments told regulators on Wednesday that cybercrooks broke into its …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

the sum would amount to almost 4.5 percent of its annual net loss

So looking on the bright side - it's 20x better at losing money doing its core business than through computer insecurity.

[Jim Mitchell]

The company was incorporated in 1987 and traded under the name Rare Earth Developments Corp. until 2011. It's still a development-stage company, financed by debt and equity to further its Elk Creek, Nebraska project. It doesn't yet generate revenue or sell any of the elements it plans to mine.

This company is pushing 40.

[IGotOut]

Why does this smack of a money laundering business? Either that or it's a holding company with load of other companies.

[claimed]

Near $10m loss a year for 38 years, and no minerals sold…

So CEO gets at least a milly, obvs, then probs 10 staff on $200k a piece, outsource the drilling to a big boy, lease the machinery, few false starts, election cycle years might need a bit of lobbying, what do you mean? This seems fine

[drankinatty]

A company can be both "legally fine" and "morally bankrupt" at the same time. A company still running a loss after 38 years is a tax-shelter, not a legitimate ongoing concern. It's a finance gimmick on a spreadsheet producing paper losses for a few and nothing of value for society at large. It's a loophole that needs closing in the tax code.

[Wexford]

That's a handy $500k to add to its deductibles.

[Pascal Monett]

"investigate, contain, assess, and remediate"

A truckload of corporate bullshit to simply say : CORRECT.

But why use one word when you can spew a bunch of important-sounding ones ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "investigate, contain, assess, and remediate"

It could have been worse.",everage" could have used as a verb.

[Paul Hovnanian]

Shame about the possible effects ...

... on critical minerals sources. Particularly the titanium.

We (the USA) have a neighbor to the north (Canada) with substantial ore reserves. At one time, they were looking to expand the mining, processing and manufacturing of that metal. One program in particular was the Avro Arrow along with its Orenda Iroquois engines. But after the USA turned out to be instrumental in pulling the rug out from under that, it was never likely that Canada would be a significant source in the future. In fact, once the SR-71 project started up, we had to spin some phony stories in order to buy the needed material from the USSR. Like they would have sold it to us had they known what we were planning on doing with it. If we would have left Canada to its own industrial development, we'd have a next door neighbor and ally more than happy to sell. And even participate in some manufacturing subcontracting.

I wouldn't be surprised if Russian and/or Chinese hackers, directed by their respective governments, have been targeting any of our attempts to bypass their oligopoly. And this is just one of them.

[tmTM]

Red faces

Tricking a low level admin employee into making this mistake is bad enough, but breaking in and doing it themselves is downright embarrassing.