Combating Call Center Fraud in the Age of COVID

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Call centers are a fraudster’s dream. Millions of pieces of personally identifiable information (PII) are transmitted from customers to service agents every day. Anyone able to infiltrate these systems — either physically or digitally — can turn around and make a small fortune selling all sorts of valuable information on the Dark Web. In fact, according to Aite Group, 61% of fraud originates in the call center.

During normal operations, security is extremely tight. Agents are authenticated with an ID badge, their arrivals and departures are tracked, and they are not even allowed to have a pen or pencil when taking calls. But these are not normal times. COVID-19 has shifted more than 1 million agents from locked-down call centers to work-from-home systems — weakening physical security strategies meant to prevent rogue actors from exfiltrating information for personal or financial gain.

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