AU10TIX fraud report unveils an increase in automated bot attacks

Developed to imitate real human identities and behaviours and often optimised with deep fake technology to deliver convincing profiles, these impersonation bots have significantly increased in use, with bad actors leveraging them to create fake social media accounts, spread misinformation and malware, manipulate online interactions, and distort public discourse. AU10TIX found that besides affecting politics and public opinion, these profiles frequently lead to the creation of banking, payment, and cryptocurrency accounts that are then utilised for fraudulent purposes, including money laundering.

Moreover, supported by the emergence of AI-enabled Fraud-as-a-Service (FaaS) companies which allow the development of large-scale attacks, the APAC region is increasingly vulnerable to financial-related identity fraud. Besides the Q2 attack, as per Sumsub's 2023 Identity Fraud Report, the region faced a 1,530% expansion in deep fake incidents and a fraud rate that grew by 24% between 2022 and 2023. This lead to the APAC region having the world’s highest fraud rate, with 3,27% of all transactions being fraudulent.

Despite this, AU10TIX’s analysts have confidence that INTERPOL’s HAECHI IV and First Light operation of Q4 2023 and Q1 2024 focusing on online financial crime and social engineering fraud interrupted criminal networks conducting their operations in the payments industry. This is backed by a 17% decline in attacks targeting the payments sector in Q2, as detailed by AU10TIX in its report.

As part of its Q1 2024 Global Identity Fraud Report, AU10TIX provided three actionable insights to support organisations in safeguarding their operations against identity fraud, including:

• Imposing identity authentication measures for all social media platforms, including X, Facebook, and Instagram, to maintain credibility among the public;

• Mitigate the threat of social media impersonation by implementing deep fake detection, consortium validation, and other similar technologies;

• Employing a combination of Know Your Customer (KYC) or Know Your Business (KYB) solutions, biometric verification, and advanced organised fraud detection tools to minimise fraud rates.