Absa Bank Ghana Limited’s fraud detection expert, Nana Addo Ampem-Darko, has identified social engineering and the exploitation of customer trust as the biggest threats to digital financial security.
He said fraudsters are increasingly targeting customers directly rather than attempting to breach the security systems of banks and other financial service providers.
Speaking at the 14th Absa-UPSA Law School Quarterly Banking Roundtable, Mr Ampem-Darko explained that investments in banking technology had made it more difficult for fraudsters to infiltrate financial institutions’ systems, prompting a shift towards manipulating customers into granting them access.
“Today, our biggest challenge is social engineering. It’s what we call human hacking, analysing human behaviour,” he said.
He explained that fraudsters often gain victims’ trust through seemingly legitimate conversations before persuading them to disclose sensitive information, including usernames, passwords and one-time passwords (OTPs).
According to him, some fraudsters also convince customers to authorise transactions themselves, making it harder for banks to identify the activity as fraudulent.
Mr Ampem-Darko cited an incident in which a customer was manipulated into setting up internet banking and sharing his login credentials and OTPs with fraudsters who claimed they were helping to protect his account.
The fraudsters subsequently attempted transactions worth more than GH¢700,000 within about two hours.
He said the bank and its partners detected the suspicious activity and blocked the account to prevent further losses.
“If you ask me today, our biggest threat is actually our trust. The fact that we trust people and then we tend to give them access to our systems,” he said.
He stressed the importance of collaboration among financial service providers and continued transaction monitoring to detect and prevent fraudulent activities.
Mr Ampem-Darko also urged customers to remain vigilant and avoid sharing confidential banking information, even with people who claim to be calling on behalf of their banks.