Technology Helping, Not Thwarting, Fraudsters

Criminals are using technology to perpetrate nearly a third of their frauds, according to a new survey by KPMG, while organizations are lagging behind on the use of technology such as data analytics to detect those frauds.

Technology significantly enabled 29 percent of the 110 fraudsters analyzed by KPMG in North America and 24 percent of the 750 fraudsters analyzed worldwide. However, proactive data analytics was not the primary means of detection in any North American frauds, and organizations only used data analytics to detect 3 percent of fraudsters worldwide.

“Companies can use advanced data analytics technology to search for suspicious and unusual business activity amid millions of daily transactions,” said KPMG LLP partner Phillip Ostwalt, who leads the firm’s Global Investigations Network. “However, many are not capitalizing on such technology while fraudsters find new ways to gain access to confidential information, manipulate accounting records and camouflage misappropriations.”

Weak internal controls were a contributing factor in nearly 6 of 10 frauds in North America, according to KPMG’s Global Profiles of the Fraudster report. Men are more likely to collude on frauds (66 percent) than women (45 percent), but women are catching up. Worldwide, women were part of almost half of the fraudster groups in 2015 compared to about one-third of such groups in 2010.

Frauds involving collusion among a group of fraudsters cost companies more money in North America, where 43 percent of the frauds involving collusion cost companies over $1 million. However, only 22 percent of the fraudsters who acted alone inflicted a cost of over $1 million.

Fifty-six percent of North American fraudsters were employed by the company they defrauded, with more than half being executives or management.

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