As Canadians adapt to the new normal, fraudsters ramp up their attacks
A new study from TransUnion has shown that while Canadians are getting more comfortable with e-commerce during the pandemic, there has been a 218% increase in the incidence of digital financial fraud over the past half-year alone.
“As more consumers go online for banking and other financial transactions, fraudsters are ramping up their efforts in the financial services industry,” TransUnion said.
On the global level, the rate of financial services fraud attempts grew by 149% from January 01 to May 01. The percentage of suspected digital fraud attempts coming from Canada spiked by 23% during the same period.
“The rate of fraud attempts are up globally and especially in the financial services industry because fraudsters understand this is where the most high value transactions are taking place,” said Shai Cohen, senior vice president of global fraud solutions at TransUnion.
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However, this phenomenon appears to be largely confined to financial services fraud.
“Other industries are facing far fewer suspected fraud attempts. In some cases, we are seeing a decline in such fraud attempts,” said Anne-Marie Kelly, head of market development, identity management, and fraud solutions at TransUnion. “The key takeaway for businesses is that fraudsters do not treat every industry equally. They often pick and choose an industry to focus on based on the time of year or what businesses are seeing more transactional activity.”
While a growing proportion of financial services organizations are implementing fraud prevention solutions with some success, “our findings make it clear that this is not the time to relax,” Cohen stressed. “As the economy begins to open up and perform better, businesses need to do even better to ensure they are providing a secure marketplace that offers friction-right experiences to consumers.”
