Make yourself fraud-proof

In a world constantly evolving towards the digital universe, getting yourself prepared for it, seems not just the right decision, but the required one.

There has been an increase in the market for cybersecurity professionals from 2013 up until 2021 of 350% , from 1 million to 3.5 million specialists and that gap is estimated to stay the same even after 5 years.

I would translate that into:

1.The fraud industry will stay the same if not (most likely) will explode.

2.There will be many more companies going digital or in the digital realm (metaverse or whatever other "verse" will be created) requiring experts in the field of protecting their businesses from fraud. That is, helping employees see that fraud and scams happen because 95% of the data breaches occur because of human error. Also, the employers will probably need to comply with even more different regulations to protect data especially as we move more and more towards remote work and online paperless documents. Specialists will be in great need to help those businesses adhere to those programs and rules.

3.While the need for expertise in the field will be in high demand, it will also occur because more and more fraud and scams will be happening and the more the fraudsters are caught, the more sophisticated their new tactics will become, making the need for continuous learning and development in the field become a must.

4.With blockchain around the corner, that still won’t mean the need for humans will diminish especially given the fact that AI emerges more and more dominant and helpful. There will still be a need for people, actual human beings to develop that AI and enhance it, to be able to cope with whatever new fraud trends arise.

5.Children will live in a world where everything is transparent or at least, they will be made to believe that's the case and they will learn to trust what AI does or doesn’t. But AI can make mistakes too, let’s not forget about the Japanese experiments where AI killed the researchers trying to escape its prisoner state lab condition. You may think I’m describing a movie scene, but unfortunately, I am not.

That’s why an increase in the need to get accustomed to managing your own safety online will dominate society and that’s why you need to learn from now how to get fraud-proof.

6.If you don’t start now, you won’t be able to keep up with all the developments that will occur in the field of AI, in the digital world, in cybersecurity and on the internet in general. You need to gain a background and this is the right time to start it.

Data breaches and data leakage even though different, both have the same cause: human error. Humans have to be trained and they need to be constantly reminded that data loss, fraud, identity theft, scams and all other sorts of data breaches are not potential threats but realistic ones which will impact the life course of an individual at least 1 time, if not multiple times. It’s not a doom and gloom prediction. Even to the best of us, familiar with the strategies scammers use, a type of fraud or scam has impacted our lives.

I don’t think there is any adult at the moment that can say they hadn’t been a victim of fraud or scam at some point in their lives so far.

Social media usage has increased significantly and with it, a Pandora box was opened too. Fraudsters use it and people fall for it. With everything that’s new, there’s always a risk. And the world it’s quickly changing its course making it so much more unstable and thus, more prone to, at this moment in time, unimaginable fraud.

It's really not far-fetched to believe that fraud will be common language and it would be best if we were, if not on the front of combating it, then at least diminish its impact, and make it so that we are less probable to have it happen to ourselves and family. It sounds a bit apocalyptic, isn’t it? To prepare for something that we believe it’s not really going to go in that direction? But, is it really such a hyperbolic thought?

I mean, you may think, but the blockchain and the government and the police and everything. Please, how many of the fraud and scams your friends and family have encountered had been dealt with successfully? How many frauds and corruption cases do you daily watch the news? How much has fraud and corruption and online criminality increased in the last few years?

Online criminality it’s a thing and it’s not just our physical well being we should be checking out, it’s also our digital footprint, our social media privacy settings, our exposure online and our laissez-faire attitude towards our personal and confidential data that’s been marketed for decades but we were too blind to see or believe it’s true.

These occurrences not only will see an augmentation, but they will also be met with though regulations and penalties which could also impact us in a negative way when we have no means of proving it wasn’t ourselves doing x and y. That’s the real problem. Identity theft, deep fakes and the digital universe (where it seems we will all have a digital clone, see a recent June BBC article regarding this subject) will leave us exposed and if not ready to face it, we might be put in a position where we have no idea what’s going on, and no one to defend us. In an AI run world, who is going to make it right for us?

In the early 2000s there was an instance of a lady professor living, working and married in the US whose name was similar to a well-known terrorist at that time. She travelled to her family in Africa and when she boarded to plane to return home, she was denied entry in the USA because of her name. Even though the terrorist was a male and she was a female, the system was seeing her as that threat and she was unable to enter the USA. She gave them proof, work, family, everything she was, was in the USA. But the system did not allow her to be someone that they did not want her to not be and the people behind the system couldn't care less about the logic of it all BECAUSE THEY WERE TRAINED TO RELY ON THE SYSTEM (because it works). She took them to justice and won back her entry in her country 11 years later.

So, are we ready for the bots to take us over?

Only if we understand the bots. Only if we learn about them. Only if we learn as much as possible about AI and cybersecurity and the digital world are we going to be equipped to fight, if we get to that.

And that’s why we all need to start learning more about the future, we need to learn more about the digital realm and how to safely navigate it so that we won’t sink when new waves are coming. Because they are coming.

Let’s take a pause, to remember a song from 13 years ago:

“The tide is high but I’m holding on. / I’m going to be your number one. / I am not the kind of girl / who gives up just like that/ It’s not the things that tease / and hold me back, / but it’s the way you do / the things you do to me. / I am not the kind of girl / who gives up just like that.”

Let’s get ready.