Let’s sneak a peek into major emerging fraud trends in 2020 to combat frauds. With evolving technology frauds are getting sophisticated. It is crucial for financial enterprises to be vigilant on various emerging frauds, quickly detecting and mitigating them.
- SMS Spoofing – is an emerging trend with the increasing use of mobile networks globally, sending bulk SMS by replacing the original mobile number, details with alphanumeric text and using it for deceiving and illegitimate acts. SMS spoofing is also used to conduct APP frauds, using technology to impersonate a reliable such as PSP as a sender of an SMS message. Targets and victims get these messages showing up from banks to which they react and respond thinking it’s from their banks however these are from the fraudsters waiting for an opportunity to commit fraud. The prevalent example of SMS spoofing is the text message comprising links to mobile malware suck links if clicked by mistake could lead to a malicious app being installed on your mobile thereby stealing your identity or valuable files for redemption.
- Authorized push payment fraud (APP) – FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) executed a rule with effect from 31st Jan 2019, enabling victims of APP fraud with specific criteria to complaint to both, the sending PSP and receiving PSP supplier and not just to the sending PSP. Implementation of this rule has helped in reducing the fraud rates thereby fighting real-time payment fraud. This also is trending as a strong layer in managing data integration and leverage analytic insights thereby minimizing and combating APP fraud.
e-Commerce Fraud – With e-commerce growth, online fraud is becoming sophisticated with the use of the latest technology to hack systems, such as online payment fraud, identity fraud, mobile fraud, digital wallet fraud, data breach, and loss of personal data. ECommerce in the fraud space must be given the required attention and protection with the EFM platform, integrated with advanced technologies and automated tools helping to combat and mitigate evolving online frauds. - Social and Voice Banking – Financial organizations are using innovative channels like social and voice banking such as Alexa, chatbots which are developing avenues for automated systems. With new channels come new challenges such as registration services are not robust and have certain loopholes which the cybercriminals take advantage of and conduct frauds.
- Breaching 2FA – LinkedIn, Gmail, Facebook, Skype, and Google are using two-factor authentication (2FA) which creates a second layer of security curbing data breaches and identity attacks. However, cybercriminals and hackers are tech-savvy, conducting sophisticated frauds using technology to their advantage are accessing personal information, compromise systems, and clear bank accounts or take over the accounts (ATO).
- Increasing Identity Theft and Synthetic ID Fraud – Financial landscape is experiencing a revolutionary transformation, and tech-savvy customers expect banks to deliver a seamless experience. In the era of sophisticated threats, it is imperative for organizations to utilize AI and ML-based technology in EFM, to differentiate among anomalies, suspicious and harmful frauds. AI and ML are becoming critical, empowering banks to manage large volume datasets, early detection of behavioral patterns, ensuring safety and security of data integration, deep analytics insights, personalized customer experience, automated systems, reduced false positives, optimized operational efficiencies, reduced costs and maximized profits.
- ATM Fraud – Increasing ATM services by banks such as real-time payments, card-less cash withdrawals are also leading to sophisticated fraud attacks such as card skimming and card shimming attacks, leading to emerging growth in ATM fraud and attacks.
- Deepfakes and Voice Biometrics – Voice-fraud is the latest form of deepfake technology, emerging as a major threat in the fraud landscape. Fraudsters recently made headlines in the USA for deep faking voices of various CEO and established people. Conmen are perfecting deepfake to impersonate people to conduct fraud. With advancing technology, it’s really challenging to differentiate between original identity and fraudster. Cybercriminals may use deepfake on a larger scale to attack the C-suite and PSP’s verification measures to perform financial fraud.
- Institutional Disruption – Cybercriminals are constantly hunting for large-scale campaigns causing disruption. They can perpetrate data of bank mergers and acquisitions by asking customers to re-verify credentials, update data and settings resulting in ATO attacks. Institutional disruption is likely to rise in the near future.
- Digital Transactions – The new Age digital transactions are significantly Increasing Enterprise Risk Landscape and Vulnerabilities. Digital transformation is the foundation of most enterprise strategies today, and its increasing pace is significantly impacting technologies thereby drifting towards the integration of cashless economy, cloud adoption, mobility, the explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT), and deploying new solutions. The integration of all these systems, technologies are enabling a data-driven approach posing various security threats, as these inter-connected systems accelerate the speed and threats of attacks across the financial globe.
Enterprises are battling security issues with the increasing network complexity, rising gaps in security protection, polymorphic attacks, and compliance issues. It’s imperative for businesses to be secure, vigilant, and follow security best practices such as integration, automation, using technology and data to drive innovation. With the ever-growing digital transactions, enterprises are digging in real-time data analytics and blockchain integrated with cognitive learning to prevent risks arising from digitalization.
In 2020 financial enterprises are embracing new technology innovations and integrating intelligent automation with AI and ML into their EFM solutions. It is time, financial organizations to think differently and take advantage of updated technologies and integrate them into their processes.
