UK-Korea: Fighting Fraud Together
In January 2022 Professor Mark Button and Dr Vasileios Karagiannopoulos were awarded a grant to explore Fraud, Cybercrime and Ageing in the UK and South Korea. In both the UK and South Korea they are experiencing ageing populations and growing problems with fraud and economic cybercrime. The central aim of the project was to facilitate greater cooperation among UK and South Korean researchers and practitioners with an interest in fraud and cybercrime. The project goals were to assess what is being done in the two countries to tackle these problems, identify potential technological solutions and to promote evidence based solutions in this area.
Working with the Korean co-investigators Professor Julak Lee from Chung-Ang University and Dr Joon Bae Suh from the Korean National Police University the researchers began exploring the relevant topics and organising events to promote cooperation.
The first event held was in the UK on the 16th June 2022 with a seminar “Fraud, Cybercrime and Ageing in the UK and Korea” which included UK and Korean Academics as well as industry practitioners and around 20 participants. Dr Suh was joined by Dr Jeyong Jung from the University of Ulsan and Joonwon Chang (Consultant specialising in cybercrime) as the Korean delegation.
Korea-UK Counter Fraud Seminar
From Portsmouth to Parliament
Later that year Professor Button and Dr Karagiannopoulos were joined by Dr Branislav Hock from Portsmouth and Dr Elisabeth Carter from Kingston University to travel to Korea to participate in a seminar on Ageing and Counter Fraud hosted by Korean colleagues at their national parliament. The event included senior politicians from the Korean National Assembly attending because the issue of phone phishing in South Korea has become such an important issue. The trip also allowed researchers to further extend their networks in Korea with visits to the Korean National Police University and companies specialising in tackling fraud, among others.
The four key researchers for this project were joined by Dr Jung in starting to formalise and develop some of the findings from this research. Both Professor Button and Dr Karagiannopoulos went on research trips to Korea to further explore these issues, during which Dr Karagiannopoulos signed an MoU with Hallym University and Professor Button visited the University of Ulsan, among others.
In June 2023 in Portsmouth, some of the findings from the project were presented at a conference with over 60 academics and practitioners in attendance. This time Dr Suh and Dr Jung were joined by Dr Koh Cholsoo from the Korean Financial Crime Prevention Association and Superintendent Dongkyu Lee from the Korean National Police.
Sharing Solutions Worldwide
In the final event of this project in Seoul in 2023 in November, an international conference on countering fraud was organised, using the grant five UK academics travelled, including the four from the previous trip and Dr Paul Gilmour from Portsmouth. It was a prestigious conference over two days with speakers from around the world and was the forum for the UK researchers to present their work on fraud. The researchers then travelled to Jeju Island for a seminar with Korean academics and practitioners on how best to confront the growing problem of cross-border fraud. During the trip, a further MoU was signed with Yong In University. Both the Korean and UK academics resolved to continue the relationship through the formation of the Anglo-Korean Security, Cybercrime and Economic Crime Academic Network (AKSCECAC).
Mapping Protection Strategies
Some of the findings from the project will now be briefly outlined. The researchers sought to first map what strategies are in place in the two countries to prevent fraud against older adults. The researchers identified 102 schemes and products which are directed either specifically at fraud prevention against older adults or a fraud they fall for in significant numbers.
These were divided into four categories:
- Traditional crime prevention applied to fraud: spyholes, signs, risk assessments etc:
- Awareness and behaviour related prevention schemes targeted at fraud: general campaigns, tailored campaigns, reverse scamming etc.
- Protection using modern technologies to prevent fraud: video doorbells, call blockers etc
- Protections using 4IR technologies to prevent fraud: spam email detection, Phishing detection and advanced call blocking
What was surprising was that even in Korea, where technology is much more dominant, there were few technological solutions using the latest fourth industrial revolution technologies. Fraud prevention for older adults is still under-developed and utilises traditional crime prevention techniques applied to fraud. Furthermore, the research found there was very little evaluation of fraud prevention. The paper that explores this is published here. The researchers also sought data on what practitioners think of the work using both a survey and interviews. This work is still under review and will be published later in the year.
The discussions and research among the researchers did stimulate the development of a model to tackle fraud against older adults, which identifies individual measures targeted at the older adult, community and government measures and organisational strategies. The project has also stimulated some joint research ideas with further publications authored by both the Korean and UK authors coming.
The older adults holistic prevention model:
Individual Measures
Understanding the risks and protections
Conducting risk assessment
Continuous scam awareness (CSA): attending regular awareness training, ongoing reading of relevant resources (articles, websites, leaflets etc), receiving general alerts
Personalised alerts (alert of unusual activity on accounts/credit file or frauds occurring data predicts they are at risk of)
Protecting the physical and digital habitus
Video doorbell (ideally smart and linked to facial recognition alerting client if face associated with potential doorstep fraud)
Personal alarms with communication for immediate triage
Call blockers for mobile and landline (smart)
Appropriate virus protection and spam filters on devices
Apps/software that automatically profile risk of websites, emails, SMS etc alerting individual
For most vulnerable, third party monitoring of accounts (partner, family, professional)
Enhancing social networks and well being
Pursuing social activities socially prescribed
Encouraging discussion of scams
Individual older adult
Community measures (NGO/Police/Government)
Identifying the vulnerable and mapping the risks
Finding vulnerable older adults and supporting
Offering risk assessments
Fraud resilience advice
Training professionals dealing with older adults to recognise potential risks and report
Contacting persons who may have fallen victim to warn of further payments
Improving understanding of the risks and ways to protect
Fraud awareness training/materials/websites etc
Helplines
Provision of alerts based upon latest intelligence targeted to appropriate groups
Trusted trader lists
Reverse scamming
Protecting the physical and digital habitus of older adults
Provision of fraud prevention products to those who cannot afford
Improving social networks
Social prescribing
Provision of support groups
Smart regulation
Smart regulations to reduce opportunities for fraud
Disrupting fraudsters
Detecting and punishing fraudsters
Organisations providing key services (Financial Institutions, TECH Companies and Telcos)
Identifying risks in transactions, interactions, vendors and customers
Finding vulnerable older adults and supporting
Training staff to identify potential fraud victims and intervene
Smart monitoring of financial transactions to block or further triage
Smart monitoring of telephone calls to block or warn customers
Smart monitoring of other forms of communication to block or warn customers
Smart monitoring to block fraudulent vendors
Joined up monitoring (data-sharing real-time), such as telephone and banking data
Improving understanding of the risks and ways to protect
Fraud awareness training/materials/websites etc
Helplines
Provision of personalised alerts based upon profile, activities and accounts
Disrupting fraudsters
Since the completion of the grant, the links have strengthened further with some of the UK delegation travelling to South Korea to attend their second international counter fraud conference. With Professor Mark Button also signing an MoU with a tech company Lava Wave which is at the forefront of the development of AI based solutions to tackle fraud and cybercrime.
Key Outputs
Research funded by ESRC Grant number ES/W011085/1