Reports show ebbing faith in banks that ignore AI fraud threat

People are losing faith in their banks, as generative AI makes deepfakes, voice cloning, injection attacks and other malicious assets and techniques easier and more accessible for fraudsters. According to statistics from Trustfull, total identity fraud losses in 2023 reached nearly $23 billion, fueled by rising synthetic identity fraud.

Customers ready to bail on banks that shirk data protection

A global survey conducted for Jumio’s 2024 Online Identity Study has found that, on average, 75 percent of customers believe their bank bears ultimate responsibility for protecting against cybercrime and fraud, and an equal number are prepared to switch away from banks that provide inadequate fraud protection.

In a release, Jumio CMO Anna Convery says the data “should be a wake-up call to banks and financial institutions – your customers will take their business elsewhere if you don’t protect them from fraud.”

Deepfakes, it turns out, are not a minor nuisance. Seventy-two percent of people surveyed worry daily about the possibility of deepfake scams that might steal their money or personal information. The majority want their government to do more to regulate AI and deepfake generators. And most still overestimate their ability to spot a deepfake.

Fears over old fraud favorites supercharged by AI

A new report from GBG company IDology shows similar findings. The ninth edition of its Global Fraud Report says businesses are worried about the rate at which digital fraud is evolving and how established fraud threats such as phishing may be amplified by generative AI. Forty-five percent of companies are worried about generative AI’s ability to create more sophisticated synthetic identities.

Generative AI and machine learning are named as the leading trends in identity verification – both the engine for, and potential solution to, a veritable avalanche of fraud. IDology cites recent reports from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), which say businesses worldwide lose an estimated 5 percent of their annual revenues to fraud.

“Fraud is changing every year alongside growing customer expectations,” writes James Bruni, managing director of IDology, in the report’s introduction. “The ability to successfully balance fraud prevention with friction is essential for building customer loyalty and driving revenue.”

“As generative AI fuels fraud and customer expectations grow, multi-layered digital identity verification is essential for successfully balancing fraud prevention with friction to drive loyalty and grow revenue.”

Biometrics, liveness, layered systems can staunch bleeding

The technology on offer from Jumio, IDology and Trustfull, among many other biometric identity verification providers, offers variations on Bruni’s theme: fraud is rising, and ID verification must rise to confront it, with all of the tools available.

Jumio’s Anna Convery says that, “as cybercriminals become more savvy with their tactics, it’s essential to fight AI with AI. Banks must implement multimodal, biometric-based verification systems that layer in liveness detection and other advanced technologies to stop deepfakes, detect camera injection and presentation attacks, and prevent stolen personal information from being used.”

The firm has processed more than 1 billion transactions in 200 countries and territories

For its part, Trustfull has announced the global launch of a new Silent Onboarding tool. A release says the platform “harnesses hundreds of digital signals to pre-screen customers without interfering with the user experience.” It combines phone, email and IP address data from publicly obtainable sources and aggregates it into a real-time digital risk score.

Marko Maras, CEO of Trustfull, calls Silent Onboarding “our contribution to the fight against synthetic identity fraud, acting as a first line of defense for all digital sign-ups.”

Necessity of secure remote identity verification

A panel on the transformative power of generative AI in identity management for financial services features Anthony Pereira, a solutions consultant for iProov, in conversation with Krisna Kurniawan of Bank KB Bukopin, Samuel Mulyono of Nobu Bank Indonesia and Khiem Tran of Techcombank in Vietnam. The global banking executives’ discussion leads through familiar digital woods: the threat from deepfakes and account takeovers, how to implement effective identity verification and authentication processes, the speed at which generative AI is improving.

Pereira cites a “staggering 704 percent increase in face swap injection attacks” that iProov observed between the first and second halves of 2023.

Mulyono puts it bluntly: “currently, in a bank, remote identity verification is a must. If a bank doesn’t have this kind of service then the bank will be forgotten by the customer.”

The full conversation is available on iProov’s YouTube channel.

Article Topics

biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  face swap  |  fraud prevention  |  generative AI  |  identity verification  |  IDology  |  iProov  |  Jumio  |  Trustfull