International fraudsters target US government programs

International bad actors -- like fraudsters from Russia and China -- are driving one in eight fraud attempts in the US, seeking everything from access to government services to loans, according to a new report.

During the pandemic, government agencies were flooded with fraudulent applications that went undetected by outdated methods. This study from Socure shows AI-powered technologies are enabling fraudsters to supercharge their efforts, hitting government agencies and commercial entities at once, with relentless speed, and at scale.

"This research confirms what many of us have known -- government agencies are under coordinated attack from nation states hellbent on exploiting weaknesses in existing identity infrastructure," says Jordan Burris, head of public sector at Socure. "This is a matter of national security. We need urgent investment in modern, accurate, and intelligence-led identity verification systems to defend against these threats. The time for half measures is over."

US government programs are being attacked by international fraud groups originating from China, Russia, Egypt, Poland and several other nations. The study shows international bad actors were responsible for up to 12 percent of all incoming applications for government services and/or loans. At least one in four fraud attempts targeted more than one agency.

Fraudsters are about four times more likely to use stolen identities instead of synthetic ones and are likely to attack both government and commercial entities with the same IDs. IP addresses, email addresses and domains linked to an identity are shifted several times within a given day, severely limiting a rules-based or black-list approach to detection.

The full report is available from the Socure site.

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