Synthetic IDs can be used to open fake accounts, but without a person to file the fraud claim, how should companies deal with this type of deceit? There is no crime where someone doesn’t need to pay for the loss. Either way, the loss is passed on to the consumers in some way or another. 

Today’s guest is Steve Lenderman. Steve is currently the Head of Fraud Solutions North America at Quantexa and has over 25 years of experience in financial crimes investigation. His previous roles include being the Senior Vice President of Fraud Prevention Investigations at Bank Mobile Technology, the Director of Strategic Fraud Prevention at ADP, and the Fraud Operations Lead for PayPal Business Loans. He is a certified fraud examiner and actively contributes to the anti-fraud community.

Show Notes:

• [1:07] - Steve shares his background and what his current role is at Quantexa.
• [4:04] - For those who are interested in a career path in cybersecurity or fraud, Steve has some tips.
• [6:07] - What is synthetic identity? Steve describes what it is and why we should be concerned about them.
• [8:59] - Although still mostly built around financial data, synthetic IDs have also morphed into other nefarious uses.
• [10:56] - All fraud in general is underreported, but synthetic IDs are extremely underreported, so data is not accurate, although still very high.
• [12:37] - Synthetic IDs can be used to open a credit card and then after several purchases, fraudsters leave the card open and unpaid.
• [14:21] - Some think that synthetic IDs and fake accounts are victimless.
• [18:59] - To understand how fraud works, Steve had to create synthetic IDs.
• [22:15] - Over the years, it has gotten even easier to do, which is alarming.
• [25:13] - Credit repair using a CPN is illegal fraud using synthetic IDs.
• [26:40] - Synthetics are all built around data and the ease of collecting data in the last few years has increased the ease of creating them.
• [27:57] - Criminals have learned that they can use synthetic IDs in more ways and in more industries.
• [31:04] - Small businesses are particularly easy targets for synthetic ID use.
• [33:16] - It is possible for synthetic IDs to also be used to create a new business.
• [34:53] - Technology has also made it possible for a deep fake to be created to match a synthetic ID.
• [36:49] - A lot of synthetic IDs are created with unused credit.

Thanks for joining us on Easy Prey. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave a nice review. 

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