– Norway has become a leader in anti-fraud work, says Johannes Vallesverd, who is a senior adviser at Nkom. He leads a relatively new, Norwegian expert group against fraud, which has attracted international attention in the professional circles. Johannes Vallesverd from Nkom leads the new, international anti-fraud work. Photo: Nkom Here’s the background: Every year society loses large sums as a result of digital fraud. Figures from the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority show that individuals and companies had a loss of NOK 928 million last year. In comparison, the figure for the previous year was NOK 614 million. In 2022, Nkom also saw that as many as 100 million fraud attempts via telephone were stopped. But many fraud attempts also got through to me and you. The scope meant that in the summer of 2023, Økokrim went so far as to refer to fraud as “a societal problem”. Nkom and Økokrim decided to take clearer action. New collaboration In August 2023, Nkom therefore gathered key players from banking, telecommunications networks, police and security around the same table. This was the first time such an interdisciplinary group had come together to solve their common problem: Digital fraud. – This is a problem that spans security authorities, banks and ecom. Input is required from everyone in order to find the weaknesses that fraudsters exploit, and to be able to close them, says Vallesverd. Since then, the expert group has exchanged experiences and found concrete measures across the industries. It has paid off, and last month 10 million fraudulent calls from abroad were exposed. Much of this was stopped because the mobile network operators now use several of the same anti-spam methods, and exchange experiences. Now other countries want to learn from Norway. Here is an example of one of the fraudulent SMS that has been stopped this spring. Facsimile: Screenshot from Ice. Norwegian initiative The Norwegian cooperation model against fraud has now become the starting point for international cooperation: – 21 countries are currently participating in GIRAF, and the work will reveal vulnerabilities and propose measures to reduce fraudulent traffic across national borders, says Vallesverd. Norway is leading the collaboration, which was launched today. – It is hoped that there will be fewer scam phone calls and scam SMS. Getting it to zero is probably a utopia, but we hope to stop even more than today, when we get more people on the team, says acting director of Nkom John-Eivind Velure. He points out that many of the fraud attempts that hit Norwegians come from abroad, and are often sent via several countries before they reach Norwegian mobile customers. – There is a difference in how far the various countries have come in their anti-fraud work. Through the international work, we will now gain a greater overview of the entire value chain and contribute to the fact that the players will eventually be able to block calls and SMS closer to the country of origin, says Velure. Blocking fraudulent numbers – We are going to rebuild Norway with digitization and then we are dependent on people having confidence in digital services, says Minister for Digitization and Administration Karianne Tung. Minister for Digitization and Administration Karianne Tung. Photo: Kai Rune Kvitstein / news She believes that fraud attempts over the phone weaken this trust. – Now we are therefore proposing to strengthen the right to block access to numbers or services that engage in fraud, says Tung. Collaboration is the key Velure says the fraudsters turn around quickly when security holes are closed: – They use new technology and change strategies and channels all the time. No authority or industry can solve the problem alone. So although the blocking results are now good, we know that new challenges will emerge. He believes it is gratifying that they can now take the interdisciplinary work out to the global government collaboration. These countries are involved So far the following countries are involved in the GIRAF initiative: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden , Switzerland, Turkey and Great Britain. Participation is under review by US, Canadian and Brazilian ecom authorities. Published 28.06.2024, at 12.52
ttn-69
Now you will get fewer scam calls – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
