Online account opening is one of the most crucial functions for banks today.
They pull out their driver's license and show it to the camera on the phone or on the PC. The bank checks some data and vets the driver's license and a new account is created.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCE. ACCESS. Threats to online account opening.
Plenty can go wrong, as fraudsters have targeted online account opening as a key source of making money.
Let's now look at one of the key ways that fraudsters can execute their account opening attack, using the threats above, to effectively attack online account opening.
The combination of malicious bots and human fraud farms can be effective in generating thousands of new account applications.
The fraudster is creating these new accounts for many purposes.
To create a money mule account to receive fraudulent funds.
To establish an account to create a synthetic persona for future fraudulent activities.
Now, let's take an example of a fraudster wanting to open 5,000 new accounts.
We are starting to see the use of GenAI in bogus new account opening.
The bot scripts can also automate the return information of all of these opened accounts.
Test the new credentials to confirm the account is opened.
The bots can also automatically add money to the new account, from, say a stolen credit card.
The large financial institutions get more controls and see less fraud in account opening, while the medium size and smaller institutions have fewer controls and get more fraud.
40% of fraud farm attacks were for fake account registration.
Throughout 2023, financial service fake account registration steadily increased.
In this blog, I took a different perspective on defining the risks associated with online account opening for a bank, by looking at what the fraudster is actually doing to create account opening transactions.
This narrative would be true for opening accounts in e-commerce, online gaming, dating sites, new credit card or loan applications, etc.
With automation and new capabilities like GenAI, which has the potential to dramatically change how fraudsters can attack online account opening and other online services, they really are doing some amazing things.
This Cyber News was published on securityboulevard.com. Publication date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 04:43:06 +0000