The fraud challenges currently facing global financial institutions are extensive. From detecting scams through to synthetic identities, fraud detection in banking requires innovative solutions to deal with complex problems. Unfortunately, most traditional authentication and fraud prevention solutions are aimed at solving a specific problem – is someone logging in from a known device or is the password entered the correct one? These one dimensional solutions leave blind spots for criminals to exploit, coming in the form of remote access attacks, social engineering and malware.
The discussion around my dinner table the other night centered around a recent fraud incident that affected a good friend. A $34,000 invoice came in with instructions to make a payment on an expected business transaction. Within a few seconds, the email disappeared, and several minutes later, another email appeared. It came from the same sender and all details appeared to be the same. The payment was made.
Several weeks later, the person received a very angry phone call saying the payment was not received. Totally confused, they called the bank to verify that the payment had left the account and that the wire was received on the other side. Turns out, the first email was real and the second was a fraudulent intercept that mimicked the first one exactly except for different wire instructions. Now, their bank will not return the funds since they, as the legitimate account holder, authorized the payment.
The Federal Reserve recently released a white paper on synthetic identity fraud, highlighting once again the vexing threat this trend poses to the payments industry and our economy on the whole. According to AboutFraud.com: “Synthetic fraud is the fastest growing form of identity theft in the U.S., comprising 80% of all new account fraud and 20% of all credit card losses.”
Well – maybe I’m a bit biased as I’m chair of FraudCON, but I think all who attended FraudCON 3.0 held June 27th as part of Tel Aviv Cyber Week 2019 would agree it was an amazing event. Over 800 people have registered, the hall was packed with fraud fighting professionals, and the content was truly inspiring.
In May 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), released the report “Federal Agencies Need to Strengthen Online Identity Verification Processes.” The report has far reaching implications for digital identity standards for both the public and private sectors. In this blog we analyze the report, how it influences the private sector and how to apply a risk-based approach to meet the overhauled digital identity guidelines.
In 2017, BioCatch was recognized by Frost & Sullivan for New Product Innovation in Biometric Authentication, highlighting the company’s position in the emerging behavioral biometrics landscape and how the BioCatch platform helps identify fraudsters without jeopardizing the user experience.
