{"id":60019,"date":"2025-09-12T18:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T18:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/60019\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T18:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T18:10:10","slug":"ai-scams-target-trust-before-transactions-visa-dps-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/60019\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Scams Target Trust Before Transactions, Visa DPS Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fraud<\/a> isn\u2019t standing still.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s criminals have more advanced technology<\/a> at their disposal than ever before, and they\u2019re using it in ways that are subtle, sophisticated and effective.<\/p>\n

\u201cFraudster tactics to compromise funds start well before the transaction occurs,\u201d Dustin White<\/a>, vice president of risk products and solutions at Visa DPS<\/a> told PYMNTS.<\/p>\n

Texts, emails and other forms of digital engagement are now the front lines of fraud, as criminals deploy artificial intelligence<\/a>-powered tools to collect information that unlocks new avenues of attack, he said.<\/p>\n

Is there a new avenue of detection and defense? For Visa DPS, one area of focus is identity intelligence.<\/p>\n

Get used to the term because identity intelligence can help companies increase their knowledge of fraud before it happens.<\/p>\n

For example, social engineering has become \u201cone of the most dangerous\u201d techniques because it underpins so many other scams, White said. Romance scams, schemes preying on parents with fake emergency calls and deep psychological manipulation all give criminals entry points into accounts.<\/p>\n

Synthetic identities, stitched together from fragments of real and fake information, amplify the damage, causing losses \u201cby orders of magnitude compared to traditional transactional fraud,\u201d White said. Account takeovers are also increasingly difficult to stop once criminals already hold all the keys to a customer\u2019s profile.<\/p>\n

The challenge is that fraudsters excel at pooling their resources, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFraudsters democratize intelligence better than anybody,\u201d White said. \u201cAnd financial institutions often don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each text or phishing email a consumer receives isn\u2019t random noise; it\u2019s a piece of a much larger puzzle. That puzzle gets solved in underground networks that quickly share tools and data. For banks, credit unions and issuers, the response can no longer be to wait until money is on the move.<\/p>\n

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Waiting Until the Money Moves Is No Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Financial institutions have long relied on catching fraud at the point of the transaction. However, that strategy has limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransactional fraud mitigation tools are absolutely a core foundational layer of security<\/a>,\u201d White said. \u201cSo, they\u2019re not going away. But \u2026 trying to stop all of that at the transactional level is sort of a big ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real shift is to intercept the fraudster\u2019s campaign before the money ever moves, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re waiting until the monetization layer, you\u2019re really not engaging with fraudsters in the battlefield that they\u2019re in day to day,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

Fraudsters are no longer content just to steal credentials. They want to compromise data that unlocks an array of attack vectors, he said.<\/p>\n

Even when fraud detection tools flag a suspect payment, banks are forced to confront another obstacle: trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cA fraudster has had a couple hours, a couple days, maybe a couple weeks to build a rapport and relationship and trust with the consumer,\u201d White said. \u201cAnd now, when you step in at the transactional phase, you are trying to undo all of that trust in a single moment. It\u2019s very hard to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forging Identity Intelligence<\/strong><\/p>\n

The goal is to use data signals\u2014from application, to login, to early account use\u2014to form a clearer risk picture long before transactions take place, he said.<\/p>\n

A unified fraud intelligence layer, designed to connect disparate data points into a single, actionable view, is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to really surface the risks before they manifest,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n

That means linking information from the moment someone applies for an account\u2014such as how they applied, from what device, through what URL\u2014with bureau checks, Visa<\/a>\u2019s internal threat intelligence and behavioral signals collected across time. The result is a unified fraud intelligence layer designed to connect disparate data points into a single, actionable view.<\/p>\n

Mobile and login touch points are especially valuable because they provide rich behavioral data, White said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can learn a lot by understanding how someone holds their phone and types,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

If a consumer historically logs in with one hand at a slow cadence, and suddenly a session appears using two hands at rapid speed, that\u2019s a signal. If a consumer who never wires money suddenly initiates a transfer while on an active phone call, that too is a red flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can start picking up on things about that mobile device telemetry before any type of transaction happens,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Connecting these dots is critical. White gave the example of email address changes. Sometimes, they\u2019re benign, such as a household consolidating shopping receipts. But sometimes, they\u2019re malicious, such as when a fraudster changes the address to suppress alerts.<\/p>\n

As he said, \u201cif a fraudster compromises an account, swaps an email so that I\u2019m no longer getting alerts \u2026 we can stitch that activity together, say, OK, email was changed from email A to email B, how risky is email B based on past history that we\u2019ve seen across the network?\u201d<\/p>\n

The strategy is what White called \u201cupstream\u201d on the fraud timeline. Rather than detecting fraud only when it \u201cmanifests transactionally,\u201d the shift is to \u201cholistic risk management across any interaction that you have with your customer, member or cardholder,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Moving Forward: A Backbone for the Next Era<\/strong><\/p>\n

Building stronger systems today to stay ahead of evolving threats is important, White said. The attacks are only going to grow and become more sophisticated. The solution lies in stronger authentication, better customer education, and AI-powered analysis of behavioral biometrics and device telemetry.<\/p>\n

But financial institutions can\u2019t do it alone. Fraud detection must be an organizational endeavor, and \u201cnot just something that the back-office team or the fraud card team works on,\u201d White said. Attacks often begin in one division, like loyalty, auto lending or personal loans, and ripple through others. Sharing data across internal teams, and across institutions themselves, is essential.<\/p>\n

From login to transaction, every signal matters. As White told PYMNTS, \u201cidentity intelligence will be the backbone of next-gen fraud prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraudsters are moving fast. Visa DPS is building for what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n

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