If you think that financial fraud in the digital world only happens to other people in South Africa, think again. One in every three South Africans has experienced digital fraud, and you could be next. The explosion in generative AI has enabled a drastic launch of new and improved fraud attacks that are often almost impossible to differentiate from legitimate sources. The government is making valid attempts to thwart the barrage of sophisticated financial attacks, but it may not be fast enough.
With R2 billion stolen from South Africans, this converts to around R11,000 per South African individual. This is a significant loss for each person and it’s anticipated to increase. 33% of those that lost money reported that it occurred on what they thought was a “safe platform.”
Reports are showing a 12.5% rate of suspected digital fraud and highest at government transactions. Cybercriminals are using GenAI to institute a sense of confidence by impersonating a reliable source through AI-generated messages and voices. This confidence allows them to steal the finances of the consumer. The thieves have carefully crafted a smart branding so that it may look and sound like the real thing.
Both government and financial institutions are focusing on increasing the steps and actions for fraud protection. Strategies are including a multi-level approach that goes beyond just the old login and password. It will soon be common to have multi-level verification for all account access. These are being created as a next generation identity-centric defence system and will use advanced analytics.
Fraudsters can con even those individuals that think they are being extra careful. They make use of pretty inexpensive services that give them the ability to send bulk spoof SMS messages that look and sound like a sender that is trusted by the consumer. The ‘trust factor’ is what they count on combined with weaknesses in the SMS systems that allow this kind of bulk mailing. A reported case showed one person losing R187,000 after they got an SMS message that appeared to be from their bank. These attacks are both cunning and sophisticated and the average person is losing a lot.
Although these financial crimes affect everyone, threat actors like to focus specifically on the elderly. A majority of elderly are not as tech savvy and may have difficulty understanding or even remembering a multitude of passwords and identity verification actions. Cybercrime victimisation among the elderly is an easier target as the criminals see them as more vulnerable. They also recognise that the elderly may not have suitable identity guardians to advise them on the latest methods used by criminals. Threat actors can devote more convincing approaches to the elderly consumer as part of their target in manipulation.
GenAI has given open-ended power to digital threat actors and both business and government organisations are focusing on battling to keep the financial endeavours and proprietary data safe.
“We have entered an entirely new realm of cybersecurity and we need to continue to spread and share the critical information that keeps everyone up-to-date on the forms of attacks that digital criminals take.”
– Sharon Knowles, CEO DaVinci Cybersecurity
Source:
https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1192&context=acist
