AnimeNewbie
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https://www.straitstimes.com/busine...detection-helped-customers-save-10m-this-year
Posted on 22nd Nov 2021.
Posted on 22nd Nov 2021.
[2021 News] OCBC's scam detection helped customers save $10m this year
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Have you been Scammed?Follow this advisory from National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) or call ScamShield Helpline 1799. More info
AnimeNewbie
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Singles' Day sale frenzy on Nov 11 seems to have ignited a spate of phishing attacks targeting online shoppers.
OCBC Bank has detected three times more scams a day than the average level over the past week as scammers try to entrap click-happy consumers.
Many of these attempts by fraudsters to conduct unauthorised transactions were foiled by the bank's system, which uses artificial intelligence to outdo scammers, said Ms Aanisah Yeo, its vice-president of fraud management and card authorisation.
She added that some of the phishing scams were reported to the bank by customers.
OCBC's detection efforts have led to about $10 million in credit and debit card transactions being saved from crooks since the start of the year.
Just last week, a fraudster attempted to make a transaction of about $5,000 from Kuwait with a credit card belonging to an OCBC customer.
As the country is not associated with a high level of spending, the bank's system analysed the transaction and found it to be highly fraudulent in nature and rejected it immediately, said Ms Yeo.
The card holder told a bank officer that he was in Singapore and had provided his credit card details to a phishing text message he had received on his phone.
Many millions of card transactions occur around the world, so how do banks know which are fraudulent?
Ms Yeo said OCBC uses a machine-learning model that allocates a score to every transaction.
One from an unknown merchant with little or zero record of a customer's spending will have a high fraud score.
Transactions from a particular country with a high number of reported fraud cases would also get a high score.
Very often, these transactions are rejected and a bank officer would call the card holder to verify the transaction.
Ms Yeo told The Straits Times that OCBC's system allows it to gather data from other financial institutions worldwide that subscribe to the same surveillance processes.
Access to such data analytics lets OCBC know the various types of scams happening in other countries, which helps it identify fraudulent transactions even before customers flag them.
Today's fraudsters have become more innovative and are constantly trying to come up with new ways to outsmart the bank's surveillance methods, said Ms Yeo.
Instead of making big purchases that could be flagged by the system, scammers are making transactions that are close to the customer's genuine spending patterns, making it hard for the bank to detect.
"That's why we are always investing in better technology and upgrading our system," said Ms Yeo.
And not all fraudsters come from syndicates.
There are also many "opportunists" who manage to get hold of credit card details from the Dark Web, said Ms Yeo.
Besides employing technology, the bank also relies on customers to report phishing attempts.
Ms Yeo cited the example of the Netflix scam where consumers were asked via e-mail and text messages for their credit card or bank details to prevent their subscriptions from being terminated.
"We do have some customers who provided their one-time passwords (OTPs) to the fraudsters, which resulted in some transactions coming from overseas," Ms Yeo told The Straits Times.
"OCBC's fraud management team operates from offices in Singapore and Malaysia. But because we were already alerted to such a phishing scam, we had set a rule on our machines to reject such transactions even though an OTP was provided."
Some are former police officers who are well equipped with investigative skills, said Mr Wong Jen Sen, head of card operations at OCBC.
He added: "We have a lot of collaboration with industry players as well as the Singapore Police Force. There's a lot of intelligence we share with one another on a daily basis."
Last week, police warned that phishing scams were on the rise again, with 378 victims having fallen prey in the first two weeks of November.
These scams typically come as text messages or e-mails from addresses impersonating trusted entities such as banks, government agencies, or companies such as SingPost or Grab.
The scammers make false claims to trick recipients into clicking a phishing URL link that directs them to fraudulent websites where they can be led into providing credit or debit card details and OTPs.
Ms Choo Wan Sim, head of credit cards and payments Singapore at UOB, said fraudsters are engineering more sophisticated techniques in the light of the sharp increase in e-commerce and other online services amid the pandemic.
She said UOB's real-time fraud detection system will trigger an alert to potentially suspicious transactions based on an extensive set of security and fraud risk indicators, including when an account is accessed from an unfamiliar IP address.
Despite the many advisories issued by banks and police, many people still fall prey to phishing scams.
The public should always verify the authenticity of information found in messages and e-mail with official sources and avoid clicking on URL links found in unsolicited e-mail and text messages, police said.
Some banks have also introduced new functions that allow customers to log into their accounts to block the use of their credit and debit cards before flagging the scams to the banks.
OCBC Bank has detected three times more scams a day than the average level over the past week as scammers try to entrap click-happy consumers.
Many of these attempts by fraudsters to conduct unauthorised transactions were foiled by the bank's system, which uses artificial intelligence to outdo scammers, said Ms Aanisah Yeo, its vice-president of fraud management and card authorisation.
She added that some of the phishing scams were reported to the bank by customers.
OCBC's detection efforts have led to about $10 million in credit and debit card transactions being saved from crooks since the start of the year.
Just last week, a fraudster attempted to make a transaction of about $5,000 from Kuwait with a credit card belonging to an OCBC customer.
As the country is not associated with a high level of spending, the bank's system analysed the transaction and found it to be highly fraudulent in nature and rejected it immediately, said Ms Yeo.
The card holder told a bank officer that he was in Singapore and had provided his credit card details to a phishing text message he had received on his phone.
Many millions of card transactions occur around the world, so how do banks know which are fraudulent?
Ms Yeo said OCBC uses a machine-learning model that allocates a score to every transaction.
One from an unknown merchant with little or zero record of a customer's spending will have a high fraud score.
Transactions from a particular country with a high number of reported fraud cases would also get a high score.
Very often, these transactions are rejected and a bank officer would call the card holder to verify the transaction.
Ms Yeo told The Straits Times that OCBC's system allows it to gather data from other financial institutions worldwide that subscribe to the same surveillance processes.
Access to such data analytics lets OCBC know the various types of scams happening in other countries, which helps it identify fraudulent transactions even before customers flag them.
Today's fraudsters have become more innovative and are constantly trying to come up with new ways to outsmart the bank's surveillance methods, said Ms Yeo.
Instead of making big purchases that could be flagged by the system, scammers are making transactions that are close to the customer's genuine spending patterns, making it hard for the bank to detect.
"That's why we are always investing in better technology and upgrading our system," said Ms Yeo.
And not all fraudsters come from syndicates.
There are also many "opportunists" who manage to get hold of credit card details from the Dark Web, said Ms Yeo.
Besides employing technology, the bank also relies on customers to report phishing attempts.
Ms Yeo cited the example of the Netflix scam where consumers were asked via e-mail and text messages for their credit card or bank details to prevent their subscriptions from being terminated.
"We do have some customers who provided their one-time passwords (OTPs) to the fraudsters, which resulted in some transactions coming from overseas," Ms Yeo told The Straits Times.
"OCBC's fraud management team operates from offices in Singapore and Malaysia. But because we were already alerted to such a phishing scam, we had set a rule on our machines to reject such transactions even though an OTP was provided."
Some are former police officers who are well equipped with investigative skills, said Mr Wong Jen Sen, head of card operations at OCBC.
He added: "We have a lot of collaboration with industry players as well as the Singapore Police Force. There's a lot of intelligence we share with one another on a daily basis."
Last week, police warned that phishing scams were on the rise again, with 378 victims having fallen prey in the first two weeks of November.
These scams typically come as text messages or e-mails from addresses impersonating trusted entities such as banks, government agencies, or companies such as SingPost or Grab.
The scammers make false claims to trick recipients into clicking a phishing URL link that directs them to fraudulent websites where they can be led into providing credit or debit card details and OTPs.
Ms Choo Wan Sim, head of credit cards and payments Singapore at UOB, said fraudsters are engineering more sophisticated techniques in the light of the sharp increase in e-commerce and other online services amid the pandemic.
She said UOB's real-time fraud detection system will trigger an alert to potentially suspicious transactions based on an extensive set of security and fraud risk indicators, including when an account is accessed from an unfamiliar IP address.
Despite the many advisories issued by banks and police, many people still fall prey to phishing scams.
The public should always verify the authenticity of information found in messages and e-mail with official sources and avoid clicking on URL links found in unsolicited e-mail and text messages, police said.
Some banks have also introduced new functions that allow customers to log into their accounts to block the use of their credit and debit cards before flagging the scams to the banks.
AnimeNewbie
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Most likely the scammer saw this and decide to disguise as ocbc
Since ppl get the impression that ocbc security very good can't be a scam
What you said is probably true because the news was reported in November and in late December, the scams began.
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