SEON Fraud Fighters has released its Fraud Trends 2024 guide that reveals which rising fraud threats will be most prevalent throughout the year.
The report surveyed 316 industry experts which combined with proprietary and independant fraud research uncovered that 87% of respondents believe that fraud will take an undoubted increase this year.
This has been mainly attributed to the rise of advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and fraud-as-a-service during a time of economic uncertainty.
AI’s proliferation over the past year has had policymakers across the world unite to find best practices to regulate the emerging technology before it becomes a significant risk, if it already hasn’t.
The SEON report believes that AI is expected to be the biggest threat when it pertains to fraud, with 71% of respondents naming it as the number one problem for 2024 as its technology can be utilised to perform automated and deepfake attacks.
Speaking to Payment Expert at ICE London 2024 in February, Amanda Lieu, Director of Brand, Product and Marketing Growth at SEON believes that AI has not yet surpassed human intelligence and that it can also be used effectively to prevent such fraud attacks.
She said: “AI can help you operate a fraud and risk team without having to invest massive resources in big teams. There is a time and place for automation with AI and still leaning on human judgement for some of the more important cases.
“AI is not there to replace entire fraud teams yet, but is a way to offset costs. Fraud is not just a fraud team’s problem, it’s a business problem.
“We are not at a stage where AI can outsmart human judgement yet. Fraudsters use AI to create higher volumes of attacks and for efficiency, but human judgement still plays a stronger part in planning and stopping strategic attacks. AI should be used to counter mass AI attacks.”
Elsewhere, other fraud types cited in the report that industry experts believe will become a problem for businesses alike are phishing fraud, synthetic fraud, identity theft, account takeovers and money laundering, with 73% of respondents naming at least one of these types.
Also within the report, synthetic fraud, account takeovers and money laundering attacks are expected to rise from last year’s figures.
With the potential of fraud attacks rising on all fronts this year, costs for businesses to prevent fraud attacks will also increase.
The report revealed that 57% of respondents believe this will be the case whilst also emphasising it is ‘essential’ for businesses to apply these systems in place, with SEON CEO and Co-Founder Tamas Kadar also stating why the time is now for action.
He said: “The time for decisive action is now. Business leaders and fraud and risk management teams must combat the increasingly sophisticated and complex emerging threats we are now seeing at scale thanks to advanced technologies like AI and machine learning.
“This report signals that companies can no longer afford to not have a proactive anti-fraud strategy. To safeguard their revenue, it’s imperative to adopt a comprehensive approach to fraud prevention.”
