"Smishing on the Rise"
A new financial crime report by researchers at Feedzai has found an increase in phishing scams perpetrated via text message, a practice known as smishing. The researchers analyzed over 1.5 billion global transactions completed in the second quarter of 2021 to paint a picture of the state of financial crime, consumer spending habits, and the top fraud trends. Purchase scams, where consumers pay for products or services that never arrive, topped the list of fraud scams, followed by scams involving social engineering, impersonation, and account takeover (ATO). Smishing, where scammers send text messages to trick consumers into clicking on dangerous links and sharing personal information, made it onto Feedzai's top five list for the very first time as the fifth most common fraud scam. Analysis of the data also revealed a continuous move to cashless transactions, with a 146% increase in peer-to-peer (P2P) payments and a 44% decrease in cash transactions. Online transactions grew by 109% to nearly double the number of in-person or card-present transactions. The researchers stated that financial criminals have exploited the shift and that the number of online card fraud attempts increased by 23% between April and July 2021. The researchers warned that the convenience of cashless transactions comes with a cost. The researchers noted that financial institutions and retailers need to address the financial risk and higher complexity attacks that arise with the digital evolution. In their report, the researchers also revealed the cities with the highest increase in fraud over the past year. Las Vegas, Nevada, which has seen a fraud increase of 411%, topped the list, with New York (up 396%) and Charleston, South Carolina (up 251%) in second and third place, respectively.