According to data by Reserve Bank of India, fraud shall cost country an estimated one crore per day over the last seven years. The frauds reported in 2021 22 were 23.69% higher than in the previous year, although there was a decline in the amount
What is the issue with respect to the cyber fraud? Why is it increasing?
That is because most of us ofled are engaging in the digital mode of transaction, we make use of phone pay, we make use of Google Pay, this is being exploited by few people. Added to it, we engage in telephone banking, we also engage in online transaction, banking services as well this is where major issue occurs and they are exploiting the loopholes that are existing in this system. This basically means that there are two issues that comes out of it. One are the people who suffer because of it. The other is the reputation of the financial institution is at stake as well and these two people ultimately file the case with the police officers, they also will have to investigate what this case is all about. So we have three sections of the people who are engaged. One is the people who suffer, the reputation of the financial institution comes to a problem and then both these people report it to the investigating agency and they go about finding out what is the root cause of this issue.
What are the various issues? Why cyber fraud is increasing? And how is it increasing?
The first happens to be phishing. What is this phishing, let's assume for a moment, you have your account with the state bank of India, what does State Bank of India do? It keeps sending you messages. So in a similar way, a person who knows how State Bank of India will send the message, he may have a similar type of it, and he will send you a message, this particular message will give you a link and when you click on this particular link, this will take you to one of the website, which is similar to the official website of the State Bank of India. This is what is called as phishing. So what happens in phishing. This is not the authenticate website of the State Bank of India. But this happens to be a similar website. It's not the official website, it is a similar website, they would have created this website in such a way that it looks entirely similar to that of the original website. So what do you do, you go to this particular website, you also give the details as well, you go to the login, so you also give the details. But since this is not the original authenticated website, you actually go about giving your information to the hacker.
So how is cyber fraud happening? There is a message that is sent, you assume that this particular message is from State Bank of India, you click the link, it goes to a particular link, and then it looks entirely the similar way and you go about giving your credentials and that is how cyber fraud happens. Since you have given your credentials, this person makes use of your credentials and will start actually working out on the website of the SBI. This is what is called as phishing links. So the first major reason why there is increasing cases of cyber fraud is because of the phishing clicks. So there is message that is sent and you go about clicking this link, taking you to a wrong website.
The second happens to be the vishing calls. What is this vishing calls, let's assume for a moment that you get a call from one of the banking channels. There's not an official banking channel, but then this are the fake calls. So what do they do? They say that they are from this particular bank, they represent the bank, they are the officials of the bank. They also say they're so and so banking officials and they also give you a minimum amount of information. They will give you a name. They will give you your address, they will give you a phone number and some of the information they can give you and the minute they give you this information to you, you enter into a comfort zone and then you start giving them the information. So, when such information is given to the people, that is what is called as vishing call, so, vishing call basically means someone is acting as the employee of a bank, but he is not the employee of a bank, he gives you a call, he takes the information that is what is called as the vishing.
In another case, there can also be a call made by this employee and this employee says that if you do not actually give me your transaction details, if you not give your details of this banking system, then your card will be blocked, you will not be able to make the transaction. So, the older citizens, the senior citizens who are present what do they do in an apprehension that the account would be blocked, they will not be able to make any transactions, they will immediately give all the details, there have been ample number of examples as well, where they post as a banking agent and they have taken OTPs and the money is taken off as well that is what is called as vishing calls.
The third happens to be frauds due to the use of unknown and unverified mobile apps. Similarly, you can get a message on WhatsApp or on normal messages and then you go about clicking this particular link and then this will show you as the Authenticate SBI application but it is not and then you download this application and ultimately your details are taken away. So these are some of the reasons as to why there are increasing cases of cyber fraud.
In order to overcome this issue. We have the Reserve Bank of India, which has given certain measures that have to be taken. Never share your account details such as account number, login ID, password pin, UPI PIN OTP ATM, debit card and credit card details with anyone, not even with the bank officials however genuine they might sound. Any phone call, email threatening the blocking of your account, on the pretext of non updation of KYC suggestion to click for updating the same is a commerce modus operandi of fraudsters do not respond to offers for getting KYC updated. Always access the official website of your bank NBFC, e-wallet provider or contact the branch. Do not download any app on your phone or device. The app may access your confidential data secretly, transactions involving receipt of money do not require scanning barcodes or QR codes or entering MPIN. This exercise caution if asked to do so check URLs and domain names as well. For example, SBI can be written in a very similar manner. So always check that there is a lock symbol that is present on the top of the website. It will also be green in colour as well. This means it is secured and safe. So if you do not have this lock symbol on the domain name of that particular link, it means it is not a genuine website. Use only verified secure untrusted websites or apps for online banking that is website starting with HTTPS where S stands for security.
In case of suspicion, notify local police cyber crime branch immediately. Do not share the password of your email link to your bank account. Do not be misled by advisers intimating deposit of money on your behalf with RBI for foreign remittances, receipt of commission or winds of lottery and secure your cash set daily limit for the transactions. These are the measures that have been given by the Reserve Bank of India.
Use of Voice Technology:
What we can make use of is the new technology, which is called as the voice technology. As of now, we may give fingerprint. As of now there might be iris or the face scan as well, but added to it we can also incorporate voice technology.
One way to reduce losses is by adopting voice technology, which encompasses voice biometrics, or voice speech recognition technology, the global adoption of smartphones has led to a dramatic increase in the biometrics for security. So as we speak about this voice technology, how does this work in emerging technology? It uses unique characteristics of a person voice as identification. That technology creates a digital Voiceprint of this voice and compares it to the callers voice, voice authentication can significantly improve security over knowledge based authentication method, which fraudsters have exploited to scam people. Compared to other biometrics voice use is the cheapest technology and does not require a reader or a special device. It is also non invasive as well. It is portable as well and affords remote identification. Although banks have traditionally relied on use of passwords. Passwords are the weakest link in the security. Unlike a password, a customer voice is impossible to spoof or copy and is far more challenging to hack as well.
VT that is the voice technology verifies a caller swiftly in seconds by analysing the callers Voice and flag suspicious calls. VT allows privacy because it does not require users to reveal personal information as well. So, this is how this technology can be employed. So voice biometrics can help all the financial institutions to ensure that there is a higher level of security prediction for the customers as well as for the employees. If you look into one of the example, in February 2019, HSBC became the first bank to take the revolutionary leap in introducing voice recognition for public banking customers. Telephone banking fraud cases fell by over 50%. The voice biometrics industry is growing exponentially. Now, experts expect that the market to reach a market size of $3.9 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.8%. so what is the significance of this voice technology, it is essential tool for all the forensics and the law enforcement. So by adopting the voice technology, we also have the investigating agencies, which can improvise on the investigation as well, they will be able to identify criminals, they will also be able to track where they're from, and ultimately better respond and prevent the crimes as well. We have the face recognition technology, which has a high rate and works best when the person is looking directly at the camera. Voice has a much lower error rate and requires no eye contact. This means that the voice has a much better success ratio. In comparison to the face recognition voice, it has the advantage of improving user experience, reducing call handle times and call centre costs.
Besides ensuring high accuracy authentication in second, it also has the ability to resist the playback attacks as well, which means a person cannot impersonate as another person, it can identify, even if the user is suffering from the isolated issue like cold or sore throat, so on and so forth. Voice could also be excellent tool for the government to disperse money for various schemes and verify the proof of life of pensioners from their homes itself. However, this technology in itself is also not foolproof as well, about 90%, yu may be right but there is the 10%, which can also give us the false positive, there might also be an error as well. So until we have 100% efficiency, 100% verification, if we keep waiting, we will not be successful. So we have to keep implementing it and as and when we have the errors, we have to rectify them as well. We have different financial institutions, which work to prevent the cyber fraud. So the government will have to make a coordination plan between the financial institutions and other departments, and also help the police to investigate as well. So voice Biometrics is making the waves in the world of fraud protection. This offers an extra layer of protection for the data.