Malicious individuals are progressively using America’s communications, banking, and digital infrastructures to perpetrate significant fraud. American households are projected to lose over $1 billion weekly to these scams, posing a threat to the economy and national security.
Consumers are reporting prodigious financial losses and heightened anxiety regarding online transactions, and diminished faith in conventional communications because of imposter fraud, cyber-squatting, domain name theft, SMS phishing, and other forms of attack. As well, a wide array of U.S. companies also suffer because of fraudsters that exploit their brand names to deceive consumers.
Recently, the Aspen Institute released a report titled “United We Stand: National Strategy to Prevent Scams,” which promotes a multi-sector approach involving government agencies, private enterprise, non-profit organizations, and the public.
This essay is the inaugural entry in a series of blog entries that will be released in the approaching weeks, addressing distinctive elements of the expanding fraud landscape and proposing innovative solutions for stakeholders to contemplate. They will be in-depth analyses of privacy and information sharing, technological instruments for fraud detection and prevention, impostor fraud and brand protection, as well as robocall and Know-Your-Customer legislation.
Report Summary
The Aspen Institute Report is structured into two main sections: (1) combating scams and mitigating their impact; and (2) enhancing scam prevention initiatives. The initial section concentrates on the repression of, and reactions to, fraudulent activities, whereas the subsequent section examines policy initiatives from both industry and government (e.g., designating scam prevention as a national priority) and modifications to current legal frameworks. The Aspen Institute Report presents a comprehensive array of recommendations, which encompass:
- Updating legislative frameworks to identify corporate responsibilities in preventing scams and promoting scam prevention initiatives through “good Samaritan” liability protections for corporations behaving appropriately and in good faith.
- Improving cooperation between law enforcement and financial institutions, including the augmentation of statutory powers for asset seizure and recovery, as well as for penalizing illicit transnational financial activities.
- Enhancing technological systems to identify, avert, and document scams, including the establishment of a centralised portal (e.g. stopscams.gov) for organisations to report scam intelligence.
- Designating scam avoidance as a national priority by allocating budgetary resources and enhancing governmental data analytic skills to combat scams; and augmenting public awareness via educational initiatives.
These proposals have extensive implications and raise numerous unresolved questions for firms investigating and enhancing fraud prevention frameworks. For example:
- Using privacy and information-sharing frameworks, as the government has allowed essential cyber information-sharing protections to expire by not reauthorising the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.
- Developing call authentication protocols, Know Your Customer regulations, and other FCC compliance frameworks pertaining to unlawful robocalling, including certifications for the Robocall Mitigation Database and the formulation of Robocall Mitigation Plans.
- Formulating and executing brand protection strategies, including call authentication and branded calling frameworks.
- Implementing new legal techniques to combat impostor fraud, including the misappropriation of renowned and valuable brand names, along with several associated and derivative schemes.
- Participating in extensive fraud-related regulatory rulemaking processes at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.
- Collaborating with federal and state law enforcement agencies to identify and apprehend individuals involved in fraudulent activities.
- Providing clients with customized investigative, analytical, legal, and technological solutions to deter fraud and apprehend thieves and impostors.
For more information or the complete report, contact the Aspen Institute; https://fraudtaskforce.aspeninstitute.org/nationalstrategy
Image by Thomas Rüdesheim from Pixabay
