Cyber-enabled financial crime

Context: Recently, Interpol coordinated an operation with enforcement agencies in more than 20 countries highlighting the global threat of cyber-enabled financial crime.

• In an operation coordinated by the Interpol, enforcement agencies in more than 20 countries have arrested over 1,000 individuals and intercepted about $27 million of illicit funds as part of a crackdown on cyber-enabled financial crime.

About Cyber-enabled financial crime

• Ransomware, sextortion scams, identity theft, money laundering, and other financial crimes are examples of cyber-enabled financial crime.
• It’s not about draining bank accounts or bitcoin wallets; it’s about stealing IP.

Threats from cyber-enabled financial crime

• Social engineering (e.g. phishing email) might be used to launch a cyber-enabled financial assault from the outside.
• Insider threats – criminally motivated workers attempting to obtain access to cash – are also a concern.

The following are the four most prevalent components of these attacks

• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) smokescreens: Coordinated denial of service attacks on financial institutions are common, and they often appear to be aimed solely to impair the usage of online banking assets.
• Transactional based network penetration: When the financial institution’s systems are breached to begin or facilitate transactions from within the financial institution, one of the developing cyber enabled fraud assaults happens.
• Data theft based network penetration: Hackers continue to try to hack into processor and other financial institution systems in order to obtain client data such as account numbers, card numbers, and other personal identifiers.
• Conventional remote banking fraud: The latest wave of cyberattacks is notable for combining any or all of the above-mentioned attacks with traditional internet, mobile, phone payment, and card attacks.

Global Efforts to Prevent Cyber-enabled financial crime:
‘HAECHI-II’: –

• The operation codenamed ‘HAECHI-II’ was conducted by INTERPOL saw police arrest more than 1,000 individuals underlining the global threat of cyber-enabled financial crime.
• Specialised police units from 20 countries, including Hong Kong and Macau, took part in the exercise to target specific types of online fraud, such as “romance” scams.
• It is the second such operation in a three-year project launched to tackle cyber-enabled financial crime.

Anti-Money Laundering Rapid Response Protocol (ARRP)

• The Anti-Money Laundering Rapid Response Protocol (ARRP) has been vital to effectively intercepting illegal payments in various HAECHI-II situations.
• The findings revealed that the increase in crimes caused by the COVID-19 epidemic had not subsided.

Purple Notices from Interpol

• Based on the findings during the operation, the Interpol published multiple Purple Notices — police alerts that seek or provide information on modus operandi, objects, devices and concealment methods used by criminals.
• The notices are shared with the member countries to enable exchange of information on emerging criminal methods and establish links between cases.

Measures to Prevent Cyber-Enabled Financial crime

• Need to protect their institution from threat.
• Need to protect their Customers from fraud.
• Need to be mindful of cybersecurity regulations.
• Higher standard of Financial Cybersecurity.
• Cybersecurity Compliance