After years of working on technological controls to combat fraud it appears that banks may have succeeded in making themselves a less attractive target for cyber criminals, according to a new survey of 170 North American financial institutions.  In a win for the good guys, those institutions reported nearly 60% fewer fraudulent account openings over the last year.

Unfortunately for the rest of us it appears that the scammers have just found a new target, as those same financial institutions have reported a sharp rise in fraud targeting their customers directly.

As the article points out social engineering scams targeting consumers are nothing new, but as banks have made themselves harder to attack there has been a sharp rise in that kind of fraud, especially over the last year.  The payment network Zelle appears particularly popular for this kind of attack, with customers from three major US banks reporting 166 million dollars in fraudulent transactions last year.

While the news of increasing numbers of consumers targeted by fraud is concerning, this change in tactics by the bad guys shows that efforts to improve cybersecurity have been working…there just needs to be an increased focus on the customer’s role in the process going forward.

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