If you have submitted your name, phone number, credit card, or payment details to an online service provider for purchasing tickets,subscribing services, registering membership, there is a large chance you could be targeted by phishing scams. Your personal information could either be sold by the unethical database provider or hacked by malicious attackers. After accessing - your contact details, the fraudsters pretend they are from a genuine company, a mobile network operator or a bank in order to steal your assets by sending bait messages.

According to UK Finance data, these kinds of scams in the UK are rising in both volume and value. Indicatively there was an increase of as much as 93% in volume, when comparing data from 2017 and 2018. The same problem has been brought up repeatedly across the world leading to, among other things, increased operational costs for banks. They have to add precocious steps to remind customers about the risks involved or contact them before any suspicious transactions can occur.

The solution for banking fraud, especially email or SMS phishing has always been passive, despite different endeavors having been introduced. There hasn’t been a way to prevent it from happening, or predict it. For example, authorities maintain a blacklist of untrusted numbers and at the same advocate vigilantes to report fraud numbers etc. However, this is exactly as inefficient as it sounds. The anti-fraud journey becomes a war which sees both sides upgrading their equipment constantly. The fraudsters have developed ways of sending messages disguised as trustworthy numbers, as seen in the simplified diagram illustrated below.

As a result, there are posters warning about scams all around the physical and digital world, which actually produce a counter effect and desensitize people making them more prone to falling victims to the scammers.