Rob Woodward – When you visited this website or opened our newsletter – did you search your browser or email search bar using the keyword ‘money’ or something similar?
Did you carry out this action in your office, a coffee shop you regularly visit and did you use your own laptop or phone?
How quickly were you reading, scrolling or typing? And why are any of these details important – to anyone? Are you being surveilled without your knowledge?
We have all read to some greater or lesser degree about the levels of surveillance our own government illegally got up to in years gone by. These included illegal surveillance systems such as ‘Optic Nerve‘, (opening millions of private webcam systems and taking images, often compromising) and ‘Tempora‘ (scanning and intercepting data on fibre optic cables) to name just two of many. But what we have not read so much about is how sophisticated surveillance systems have become to defend us from the bad guys.
If you, like many millions of people, are now using mobile banking, then these little details – location, speed of typing, spelling errors, scrolling speed – and so on – are all very important to your bank. These little details form into an online profile and when you access mobile banking it helps its systems to recognise it’s you and not a fraudster.
If your phone was hacked and the fraudster was attempting to transfer money using sophisticated software to get past security systems, there’s one they will struggle with. During the log-in process, the bank’s surveillance algorithms would notice what hand was being used to type, the speed of accessing its systems and the micro-movements you normally use and if they don’t match – red flags are raised to challenge the user.
Not only is your mobile device a security system, but so are your habits and the software that you agree to allow under the bank’s app to work in the first place now works in the background all the time. This constant tracking, which was always something of considerable suspicion is now becoming part of your identity.
Bank scams and online fraud is now a huge headache for the banks. Not only does it hit the bottom line in repayments to affected customers but it hits their reputations as well. In the first six months of 2021, fraudsters walked away with nearly £800mn from customer accounts alone. This is a jump of 30 per cent on the same period the year before and is rapidly rising. Overall, online fraud is huge in the UK – and the government now recognises it as a national security threat.
As scams get ever more sophisticated, the banks have learned to protect their systems from hackers – and so now the hackers have turned their focus onto you – the customer. Either they are hacking the account to send money from your account to their own destination accounts or they are trying to convince you by scamming you to do it for them.
These new surveillance systems – originally designed for nefarious reasons are now being used to protect you. So if it’s not you or a scammer is using you to guide your way to making a big mistake – your bank will probably know and may well start to intervene.
If you’re concerned about being a victim (as you should be) then HERE is a quick guide to stop becoming one.