Trust in the digital age: navigating security amid sophisticated threats and cyber attacks

Mamacrowd is at the forefront of supporting Italian innovation through equity crowdfunding, an effective alternative finance tool. We promote the most promising and visionary projects in different sectors, from Food&beverage to Fintech. The latter is in great turmoil with many innovations and faces major challenges in protecting users' sensitive data and digital identity, applied to anti-money laundering and anti-fraud.

Identities today are constant prey to increasingly sophisticated attack techniques. Modern cyber threats, include increasingly complex attacks based on artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced document forgery techniques and deepfakes, making the digital environment vulnerable and difficult to protect.

In 2022, half of the cyber attacks recorded in Italy involved the theft of victims' digital identities or credentials (Annual Report 2022 - SISR). Hackers exploit various techniques, such as phishing, social engineering, and deepfake to carry out such attacks and gain access to sensitive information, creating fake identities for use in the physical and digital world.

Let us look together at which techniques are most commonly used for identity theft and which realities present possible vulnerabilities.

Social Engineering and Deep Fake

Social engineering is a manipulation technique that uses deception to gain access to confidential information or sensitive systems. This technology creates manipulated content very easily and through the use of special APPs, realizing convincing results about its authenticity. In cases of identity fraud, deepfakes can impersonate trusted individuals or authority figures. For example, using video or audio, cybercriminals can simulate video interactions or imitate voice to obtain sensitive information or access protected systems. These attacks compromise the authenticity of information and can undermine trust in sources of identity identification and verification. The introduction of deepfakes into social engineering amplifies this threat, as the appearance of authenticity and veracity of manipulated information can make it more difficult to detect deception.

Documentary Forgery

The evolution of technology, especially artificial intelligence, has fueled and amplified document forgery methodologies, making forgeries more sophisticated and difficult to detect.

Through the use of software and the search for fake documents on the dark web, it has become increasingly easy to use digital image and text manipulation techniques to produce fake documents that faithfully replicate the originals, raising serious concerns about identity protection.

Digital identity at risk

As technology advances,Risks of digital identity manipulation increase.
A recent report by Report raised concerns about the anti-fraud garrison during the identification process for issuing SPID digital identity. This report highlighted the ease with which false digital identities can be created, highlighting the urgency of more advanced anti-fraud solutions.

In contemporary society, digital identity plays an increasingly central role in our daily lives, becoming a key tool for accessing a wide range of both public and private online services. The mentioned examples of Social Engineering, Deepfake, and document forgery are just some of the fraudulent ways used by criminals to circumvent the security measures provided for identification useful for the issuance of SPID first, and authentication through the said identity later.

The ease with which dual digital identities can be created underscores the urgency of advanced anti-fraud verification methodologies to protect citizens and businesses.

An anti-fraud approach to proper identity preservation - INEO

In such a sensitive and risk-prone environment, proper anti-fraud presidium is essential to secure users' identities.

To counter the fraud we discussed in the article, it is essential for companies to use advanced solutions and tools that also leverage artificial intelligence such as methods for biometric recognition of faces and documents, strong authentication processes, and constant cybersecurity monitoring to thus protect identity.

It is in response to this market need that the following was born INEO, the fintech company that offers advanced solutions for secure and fast digital customer onboarding and identification, now campaigning on Mamacrowd.

INEO hasover a decade of anti-fraud experience and targets all those companies subject to anti-money laundering regulations. It leverages patented technology with AI for realtime anti-fraud and anti-money laundering audits and digital, flexible and omnichannel onboarding, unique in the Italian landscape.

In 2023 alone, there has been a 22% increase in identity attacks and Deep fake threats see a steady 900% annual increase (Experian; World Economic Forum). It seems clear that the AML/CFT market has ample room for growth and is an excellent investment opportunity.

Article prepared in collaboration with Ineo.

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