By October, these usurpations should be made much more difficult, underline the authors of the 2023 annual report of the observatory of the security of means of payment of the Banque de France.
“Hello, this is your banker.”. Fake bank advisor fraud continues to cause damage. The scam, which involves calling a victim with their bank number under the pretext of fraud and then stealing their identifiers and money, cost nearly 375 million euros in 2023, according to the Banque de France, which published the 2023 annual report of the payment security observatory on Tuesday. These scams represent nearly 32% of the amounts defrauded last year, compared to 29% in 2022 and 22% in 2021. “This type of fraud tends to grow, while the total amount of fraud has been stable for three years at around 1.2 billion,” recalls Julien Lassalle, head of the cashless payment method monitoring service at the Banque de France.
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In recent years, the security of bank card payments has been strengthened, with the adoption of strong authentication (facial control, or by sending emails or SMS). “But these techniques attempt to circumvent the safeguards that have been put in place.”continues Julien Lassalle. In concrete terms, the prey are first harpooned by a fake text message or email (lost package, deactivated health insurance card, etc.) inviting them to click on a fraudulent link (phishing). They are then called back by a fake bank advisor, usurping their bank’s telephone number (obtained by hacking), alerting them of an attempted fraud. But the main aim is to extract their bank login codes or to encourage them to identify themselves on their banking app, in order to make a large transfer in their favor. “The development of these methods has pushed us to work more with telecom operators to find answers to these new scams,” says Julien Lassalle.
By October, these spoofs should be made much more difficult. Each landline number will indeed have a certificate of authenticity. And operators will have to automatically check its conformity, with each call. “We are hopeful that we will be able to put a very clear stop to these scams. The scammers will no longer be able to usurp the number of a banking establishment,” recalls Julien Lassalle. “If the certificate appears to be non-compliant, the operators are responsible for cutting off the call.”
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