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ing, FIs can gain deeper insights into risks, identity pat- tools to their own arsenals. "We developed our innova-
terns and trends to make informed decisions. This com- tions to help crack even the most complex fraud cases,"
prehensive approach helps FIs to not only mitigate risks, Dave Excell, founder of Featurespace, said in a statement.
but also seize potential opportunities, contributing to im- "As part of Visa, we will be able to set a new standard in
proved operational efficiencies and sustainable growth. AI-fraud powered fraud protection and integrate our solu-
tions into a series of products and services."
Adoption of suitable technology is not enough, however.
Integration is equally important. The seamless integration Fraudsters are adjusting to new reality
into the existing infrastructure unlocks the full potential "While tokenization is one of the most secure ways to
of an FI's technology suite. transact, we're seeing fraudsters use social engineering

Visa and Mastercard lead the way in payments IRM and other scams to illegitimately provision tokens," Visa
said in a statement. For example, advanced language mod-
Mastercard and Visa have taken the lead in intelligent risk els, such as ChatGPT can be exploited by fraudsters to cre-
management (IRM) as it relates to payments. But these are ate malware that assists in the development of malicious
what Vincent describes as point solutions. In 2004, Mas- code that can be deployed to execute digital skimming or
tercard acquired the global threat intelligence company other attacks to steal payment account credentials.
Recorded Future to bolster insights and intelligence used
to secure the digital economy. Digital skimming is the online version of POS skimming.
Instead of concealing surveillance devices on POS devices
"Trust is the foundation of any relationship," said Craig to capture card and other pertinent information, criminals
Vosburg, chief services officer at Mastercard. "Recorded sneak malicious code into ecommerce sites to steal the
Future adds to how we deliver that greater peace of mind payment data of consumers who shop on those sites. The
before, during and after the payment transaction. To- information then is sold on the black market.
gether we will innovate faster, create smarter models and
anticipate emerging threats before cyber-attacks can take Meanwhile, rarely a week goes by without reports of a
place – in payments and beyond." data breach. Most recently, it was disclosed that the per-
sonal details of more than 3.3 million people were ex-
Recorded Future provides real-time visibility into poten- posed when DISA Global Solutions, which provides back-
tial threats by analyzing a broad set of data sources to pro- ground checks and drug testing services to some of the
vide insights that prompt actions that mitigate risks. Cou- largest companies in the United States, was breached in
pling Recorded Future's AI, ML and other technologies early 2024.
with Mastercard's identity, fraud prevention, real-time de-
cisioning and cybersecurity services, presents expansive Mastercard reported that in 2023 there were 416,582 cases
threat intelligence capabilities to Mastercard's network of of identity theft in the United States facilitated by skimmed
merchants and financial institutions. card data, alone.

"Recorded Future has been a pioneer in using AI-powered FBI, others sound alarm bells
analytics to generate insights that are easily accessible So dire is the threat situation, that the FBI issued a public
to and understood by customers," Christopher Ahlberg, service announcement (PSA) in December 2004 warning
CEO at Recorded Future, said when the acquisition was the public that criminals are exploiting generative AI to
disclosed last year. commit fraud on a larger scale than ever before. "Genera-
tive AI takes what it has learned from examples input by
Back in 2010, Visa acquired the payment gateway Cyber- a user and synthesizes something entirely new based on
Source, which brought with it fraud management tools that information," the FBI wrote in the PSA.
that it continues to enhance. More recently, Visa acquired
Featurespace, a developer of real-time AI payments pro- And it's not just the FBI sounding alarm bells. The online
tection technology that prevents and mitigates payments newsletter FrankonFraud dubbed 2024 "Fraud at full throt-
fraud and financial crime risks. tle," as fraudsters upped their games. They did so using
social media outlets, like Meta and Telegram, which allow
In 2023, Visa introduced Visa Provisioning Intelligence fraudsters to quickly spread tricks of the trade. AI conver-
(VPI), an AI-based product designed to combat token fraud sations by fraudsters increased 644 percent between 2023
at its source. It uses ML to rate the likelihood of fraud for and 2024, according to FrankonFraud.
token provisioning requests.
According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, scammers
VPI provides a real-time fraud propensity score between siphoned $1.3 trillion globally from consumers last year,
one (lowest probability of fraud) and 99 (highest probabil- a figure that rivals the gross domestic product of some
ity). countries. But the reality is that the true cost of fraud is
hidden. Despite the significant financial and emotional
These acquisitions are key as fraudsters add AI and ML toll, only 28 percent of scam attempts are reported to au-
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