The 2022 Voice Intelligence and Security Report from Pindrop analyzes how fraudsters exploit customer service call centers to complete account takeovers and other fraud methods.

With the support of Europol, law enforcement agencies in Latvia and Lithuania detained over 100 people suspected of defrauding victims across the world in an international call center scam. 

Any organization handling personally identifiable information through an IVR or contact center must secure its systems and implement proper risk management protocols. If they don’t, they and their customers may well suffer severe financial and reputational damage in the years to come.

Contact center call volumes will vary from industry to industry and from month to month, but the general trend is steeply upward.  Adding new agents isn’t the only or even the most efficient way that contact center managers can respond to the great COVID crunch of 2021. A properly deployed Interactive Voice Response system can make workloads manageable for agents while keeping customers from long and frustrating minutes on hold. Still, new options for callers may correspond to new opportunities for attackers. 

As companies increase their cybersecurity defenses, fraudsters are now targeting call centers with easily obtained and plentiful personally identifying information and they are sharing it too.

Call center fraud is rising at an astronomical rate, increasing 113% in 2016.

Strong online and mobile security, coupled with the rollout of EMV chip cards in the US means cybercriminals are changing tactics, exploiting the weakest link in the organization: the call center.

 Research from Pindrop Security has found a 30-percent rise in phone fraud attacks on enterprises and more than 86.2 million attacks per month on U.S. consumers.