The retail banking sector has been hit with numerous scams during the past few years. Cybercriminals are now also beginning to increasingly go after much larger corporate accounts by launching sophisticated malware and phishing attacks, according to Beate Zwijnenberg, chief information security officer at ING Group.
Zwijnenberg recommends using advanced AI defense systems to identify potentially fraudulent transactions which may not be immediately recognizable by human analysts.
Financial institutions across the globe have been spending a lot of money to deal with serious cybersecurity threats.
They’ve been using static, rules-based verification processes to identify suspicious activity. They’ve also been using more advanced biometric authentication methods. Banks throughout the world keep looking for better or more efficient ways to ensure that their platforms remain secure, while trying to lower the costs involved with maintaining a high level of security.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are now being used to analyze thousands of transactions in real-time. These advanced technologies allow security professionals to quickly and accurately check for potentially fraudulent activities. In many cases, cybersecurity experts are able to take action before bad actors can carry out fraudulent transactions.
As reported by PYMNTS, Amsterdam’s ING Group, which manages nearly a trillion euros in assets, has been using AI/ML tech to protect its platform against attacks from cybercriminals.
Zwijnenberg told the news outlet:
“The real-time aspect of online fraud means that you need to intervene immediately because otherwise, the money is transferred and it’s gone for good. So, the real-time element [of artificial intelligence] is quite important.”
She added:
“Fraudsters are after the data or the money, but until recently, the techniques had not changed. If you have a traditional bank branch, they try to get into the safe and physically get the money out, and for digital banks, it’s not much different. It is only the modus operandi that has changed.”
Zwijnenberg revealed that cybercriminals are increasingly targeting wholesale banking and are consistently applying the same phishing techniques to different types of customers. She confirmed that phishing scams are the most common in both business banking and wholesale banking. Identity theft has also become a major problem, Zwijnenberg noted.
She explained that using machine learning algorithms is a good idea when the amount of data is “becoming bigger and bigger over time.” She added that it’s like finding “the needle in the haystack, and you benefit from applying AI and ML to make sure that you really only look into the specific areas that call for it.”
Banks and government offices were recently targeted by malicious malware (a P2P botnet) which had maliciously mined privacy-oriented cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) by hogging the computing resources of targeted computers.
Cyberattacks in the UK and the US have increased as more consumers and businesses conduct financial transactions online.
Last month, over 300,000 potentially fraudulent sites with fake celeb endorsements were identified by the UK’s National Cyber Security Center, with half of them being related to cryptocurrency.
