Security News > 2021 > June > Banking Attacks Surge Along with Post-COVID Economy

As the post-pandemic economy roars back to life, cybercriminals are using a new whirlwind of transactions as cover to launch an extraordinary number of bank fraud attacks.

In just the past quarter, the number of attacks on banks ballooned by 159 percent.

Their latest Financial Crime Report found that compared with January 2021, March 2021 saw a 21 percent jump in spending across state lines and a 410 percent increase in spending across borders, amounting to a 383 percent jump in the dollar amount spent.

Card Not Present transactions were a sweet spot for fraudsters, Feedzai said, making up only 18 percent of credit card transactions, yet accounting for 83 percent of the total fraud attempts.

The rise in bank fraud also follows repeated, despicable, yet predictable, attempts to exploit COVID-19 to help pull off fraud.

Hank Schelss from Lookout pointed out that his company's research shows the number of financial services employees exposed to a phishing attempt held fairly steady between Q4 2020, which was 23 percent, and Q1 2021, which tells him that rather than a focus on banks specifically, this financial fraud surge is tied more closely to attackers trying to cash in on COVID-19.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/banking-attacks-surge-along-with-post-covid-economy/166612/