Leveraging voice technology to combat cyber-fraud

Subject :Science and Technology

Cyber-fraud:

It is a situation in which someone uses the internet to get money, goods, etc. from people illegally by tricking them: Not only does cyber fraud inflict losses on the cardholders, but also the merchants, merchants’ banks, and card issuers.

Cyber frauds in India:

According to data by the Reserve Bank of India, frauds have cost the country an estimated ₹100 crore a day over the last seven years.
The frauds reported in 2021-22 were 23.69% higher than in the previous year (9,103 cases reported compared to 7,359 in 2020-21), although there was a decline in the amount involved.
The main reasons for the rise in fraud include greater use of digital payments, telephone banking, and online banking services.
Growing fraud also means rising losses for financial institutions and increasing cases for law enforcement to solve.

An emerging technology to tackle cyber fraud:

This technology is known as Adopting Voice Technology (VT).
It encompasses voice biometrics or voice/speech recognition technology.
it uses the unique characteristics of a person’s voice as identification.
The technology creates a digital voiceprint and compares it to a caller’s voice.
Voice authentication can significantly improve security over knowledge-based authentication methods, which fraudsters have exploited to scam people.

Benefits of this technology:

Compared to other biometrics, voice use is the cheapest technology, and does not require a reader or special device.
It is also non-invasive, portable and affords remote identification.
Although banks have traditionally relied on the use of passwords, passwords are the weakest link in security (81% of hacking-related breaches involve weak passwords).
Unlike a password, a customer’s voice is impossible to spoof or copy, and is far more challenging to hack.
VT verifies a caller swiftly in seconds by analysing the caller’s voice and flags suspicious calls. VT allows privacy because it does not require users to reveal personal information.
Voice biometrics can help financial institutions to ensure higher levels of protection for customers and employees.

Prospects of the voice biometrics industry:

In February 2019, HSBC became the first bank to take the revolutionary leap in introducing voice recognition for mobile banking customers — telephone banking fraud cases fell by over 50%.
The voice biometrics industry is growing exponentially now.
Experts expect the market to reach a market size of $3.9 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.8%.

Growing applications:

An essential tool for forensics and law enforcement.
Airport security as voice biometric has a lower error rate than face recognition technology.
It also has the ability to resist playback attacks.
It is sensitive enough to detect if someone is impersonating the user or playing a recording.
It can identify even if the user has a cold or a sore throat.
Disbursal of money for various schemes
Verify the proof of life of pensioners from their homes.

VT has the advantage:

Disadvantages:

May not be 100% foolproof, may give false positives, and has an accuracy between 90% and 99%.
But some recent systems which come with voice analytics of gender and age identification, claim 100% verification accuracy.