Thursday 14th January, 2016

Carole Gratzmuller, boss of a French company called Etna Industrie returned from a business trip to find hundreds of thousands of dollars had been transferred out of company accounts.

Apparently she gave the instruction for this, but she had no idea what her accountant is talking about – she didn't give any instructions.

Etna Industrie, which employs 50 people and has been making industrial equipment near Paris for almost 75 years, was the victim of a specialised email phishing attack dubbed as ‘CEO fraud’.

"Everything happened between 9 and 10 o'clock," says Ms Gratzmuller. "The accountant probably got about 10 emails in that time and three or four different phone calls."

"They didn't give her a moment to sit back and think that this was unusual," she says.

Before noon the accountant had authorised wire transfers totalling €500,000 (£372,000; $542,000) to foreign bank accounts. The banks stopped three transfers, but one for €100,000 went through, although it was later paid back by one of the banks.

"It's like when your house or apartment gets broken into," Ms Gratzmuller tells the BBC. "You feel vulnerable. People get into your life and they know things about you and you have no clue, and they take things from you."

French businesses have lost an estimated €465m since 2010, official figures suggest, with 15,000 firms falling victim to the scam, including big names, such as Michelin, KPMG and Nestle.

This type of fraud is also prevalent in the UK.