Tech developments are leading to increasingly sophisticated messaging scams, which means mobile providers and companies relying on mobile marketing must constantly be on the front foot to protect themselves and their customers.
Recently, Engage Hub’s Mark Grainger took part in a panel at Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF)’s Business Messaging event to discuss this topic.
Here are 3 takeaways from that discussion.
1. Channel proliferation means more opportunities for fraudsters
There’s no denying that fraudulent messaging is on the rise. In the summer of 2021 alone, 45 million people received a scam call or text. There are a number of reasons for this dramatic increase.
First of all, there are more messaging channels than ever before. SMS, MMS, IM, social media – the number of platforms is growing along with their user bases, giving fraudsters greater opportunities to exploit victims.
And then there’s the lack of authentication. Too many platforms lack robust authentication and verification mechanisms, making it easy for scammers to impersonate individuals and companies. This, in turn, allows them to play on victims’ trust and trick them into sharing personal or financial information.
2. Security has to be tackled through both tech and education
Given the increasing prevalence of messaging fraud, providers must prioritise security at every stage.
On the tech side, this means:
- Introducing more stringent authentication methods
- Improving encryption
- Leveraging AI to streamline fraud detection
- Adopting real-time reporting
From a people perspective, organisations should invest in educating users to spot malicious messages across the customer journey. They should also continuously collaborate with law enforcement, service providers, peers and industry experts to share knowledge and attack the problem from every angle.
3. You need artificial intelligence to tackle fraud at scale
Despite warnings about the security risks posed by AI tools like ChatGPT, AI can and should play a key role in fraud prevention.
With AI, you can analyse huge amounts of data from a range of sources in near real-time, allowing you to detect any anomalies, patterns or suspicious behaviour that warrants further investigation.
Natural language processing (NLP), for example, lets you analyse the content of text messages to spot malicious URLs or language indicative of a smishing attempt. Similarly, AI-powered reporting systems let you monitor transactions and interactions in real-time, so you can spot fraud as it’s happening and stop it immediately.
AI can also help strengthen your security measures, making it harder for malicious messages to get through in the first place. For example, AI-powered authentication systems can leverage biometric data, voice recognition or facial recognition to enhance the accuracy and security of user identification processes, reducing the risk of identity theft and fraudulent account access. And tools like Engage Hub’s Message Authenticator let customers verify any message they get from your business with real-time, automated checks.
—
Watch an overview of the event discussion here. To find out more about how Engage Hub can help you tackle fraud, get in touch.
