Telecom-related frauds

Also, the firm in its 2022 Global Crime Survey reported that nearly two-thirds of technology, media, and telecommunications companies experienced fraud, the highest rate across all industries, with half of these incidents being cybercrimes. In other words, it is a global phenomenon.

Fraud, across digital platforms, is something that Nigerians are only too familiar with. The fact is that many Nigerians have not only encountered the scammers and other online fraudsters in one form or the other but have suffered from their activities. According to the NCC, nearly 60% of Nigerian internet users have encountered some form of online scam.

 The foregoing is why Nigerians should worry about the report, particularly the trend, and its growing complexity over the course of the past years.

For instance, only in January, Premium Times reported that Nigeria Police Force uncovered a large-scale cyber-enabled fraud involving the illegal diversion of a telecommunications company’s airtime and data resources, with estimated losses of N7.7 billion. Six suspects were arrested, while subsequent investigations by the police were said to have revealed that “internal staff login credentials had been compromised, granting threat actors unlawful access to core systems.”

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Of the development, the professional services firm could not have captured the dilemma better: on the one hand, “AI has tremendous potential to drive positive change across sectors”, yet on the other “the rapid adoption of AI is reshaping the fraud landscape in the telecommunications sector, enabling criminals to automate scams, impersonate victims through deep fake technologies, and scale fraudulent schemes with unprecedented speed”.

The challenge therefore is how to get the industry to match the scale of the problem, both in terms of numbers and its complexities, more so as the challenge is multi-sectoral in nature – cutting across the telecommunications and financial services sectors.

Nonetheless, it is heart-warming that a lot is already being done in this regard. Notably, some telecom operators are said to be already deploying AI-powered spam detection tools capable of analysing hundreds of behavioural parameters to determine whether a message is fraudulent. The banks on their part are said to have developed advanced fraud detection algorithms that could enhance telecom operators’ ability to identify suspicious activity across their networks.

We are also aware of the efforts by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to put in place a Telecoms Identity Risk Management System (TIRMS), a centralised platform that will track and verify the risk status of mobile numbers across sectors.

These are certainly critical steps to take. More than ever, however, is the need for stronger collaboration among telecom operators, financial institutions, and regulators to deal with the menace.

Surely, the humongous financial losses involved, the reputational damage posed, including the erosion of customer trust are such that the industries together can ignore only at their peril; these aside the regulatory scrutiny bound to be spawned by inaction on their part.