Financial Crime World

Saudi Arabia’s War on Fraud: Anti-Fraud Summit 2022 in Riyadh

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, played host to the inaugural Anti-Fraud Summit 2022, marking the International Fraud Awareness Week. This major specialized event focused on financial fraud detection and prevention was organized by the Saudi Monetary Authority (SAMA) in collaboration with Kearney, a global business management consulting firm.

The Global Epidemic of Fraud

  • The finance industry is projected to lose $408.50 billion to fraud by 2030 (Statista).
  • Cybersecurity firm Resecurity anticipates cybercriminals stealing $49.32 billion through digital payments by the same year.
  • The US Department of Justice reports that $2 trillion in ill-gotten funds find their way back into the global economy, enabling money laundering and shadow economy activities.

Expert Insights and Solutions at the Summit

The event brought together leading financial institutions, business, and technology experts to discuss minimizing the impact of fraud in the Kingdom.

Top Speakers

Some of the top speakers included:

  • Brett Johnson, a world-renowned cybercriminal-turned-consultant.
  • Tony Sales, a former fraudster and author of “How I Stole £30 million and Got Away With It.”

Panel Discussions

Panel discussions featured leading information security, fraud prevention, and risk management companies, including:

  • Axon Technologies
  • MOZN
  • Fidzai
  • CyberKSA
  • Resecurity

These companies shared their expertise on addressing the most pressing fraud threats, including:

  • Mobile malware
  • Identity theft
  • Social engineering
  • Phishing

Combating Advanced Cybercriminal Tactics

Advanced cybercriminal tactics have made it increasingly difficult for financial institutions to protect their customers’ assets. Resecurity presented a comprehensive fraud prevention solution utilizing:

  • Device fingerprinting
  • Fraud & risk intelligence feeds
  • SDK
  • AI-based detection engines

Preemptive Threat Intelligence and Dark Web Monitoring

Early signs of potential account compromise can be identified preemptively through threat intelligence and Dark Web monitoring, where many compromised payment data are sold on underground marketplaces. Resecurity’s technology uses:

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Data Science

Christian Lees, CTO at Resecurity, reported successful cases of stolen assets recovery and collaboration with international law enforcement to target criminals and organized crime groups.

Financial Institutions in the Kingdom: Stepping Up to the Challenges

Financial institutions in the Kingdom have been encouraged to adopt advanced fraud prevention solutions that leverage behavioral and data-driven mechanisms as opposed to susceptible statistical algorithms. Abdelrahman Alkenani, CEO of CyberKSA, emphasized the importance of harnessing technology’s power to counteract fraud.

SAMA recently released an updated Counter-Fraud Framework, providing financial institutions with comprehensive compliance requirements around fraud detection and prevention controls, ongoing monitoring, employee and customer training, and investigations.