Global Fraud at Global Scale
Fraud is a global problem, and we saw compelling stories this week from far-flung locations across the planet.
For example, from Australia, we learned of big problems in payments-related fraud:
“39% of business owners have either been a target of attempted payments-related fraud, or know a business which has, and lost thousands of dollars in the process. 14% of owners contemplated closing their business as a result.”
Meanwhile, from Iran comes news of thousands of fake accounts destabilizing Twitter and Facebook. Fortunately, as reported by Vox this week, those accounts are being removed, as there are serious political issues at stake:
“If the US government and leading technology companies can’t find a comprehensive way to deal with this problem soon, we will all live with a terrifying new reality in which social media disinformation could sway elections at light speed.”
Meanwhile, right here in California, news of a massive data breach broke, courtesy KrebsOnSecurity:
“First American’s Web site exposed approximately 885 million files, the earliest dating back more than 16 years. No authentication was required to read the documents.”
The above article makes some pointed observations about where the real concern lies when it comes to data breaches like this one:
“The information exposed by First American would be a virtual gold mine for phishers and scammers involved in so-called Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, which often impersonate real estate agents, closing agencies, title and escrow firms in a bid to trick property buyers into wiring funds to fraudsters. According to the FBI, BEC scams are the most costly form of cybercrime today.”
In short, the problem isn’t so much the breach itself, as it is what happens to the data if it ends up in the hands of fraudsters — how it gets used, and what crimes are perpetrated. We wrote about this same subject in an April edition of This Week in Fraud Trends:
“Once the data gets stolen, it gets re-used right away, or sold and then used. Once a fraudster has your details, that’s all they need to start robbing you.”
We close out with more global news, this time from Germany. As reported by TechCrunch, stern efforts are in process to address money-laundering and other concerns:
What all these stories serve to illustrate is how rapidly fraud is scaling. We close this edition of This Week in Fraud Trends with a relevant quote from DataVisor CEO Yingian Xie:
“Scale is a term often encountered in technology space, but in the arena of fraud management, it takes on a singular resonance, as it serves to represent the staggering scope of fraud attacks permeating today’s digital economy. Fraudsters have a highly advanced set of tools and technologies at their disposal, and they are growing ever-more adept at using them to evade detection even as they’re ramping up the size and intensity of their attacks. This is what we mean when we speak of ‘fraud at scale’ — waves of attacks, cleverly disguised, with the power to create widespread financial and reputational damage. Fortunately, we can also speak of ‘fraud management at scale.’”
