International management consulting firm, ST2 Technology has announced a new partnership with innovative cybersecurity company Trudera to launch new anti-phishing and fraud technology, GoVerify, designed to restore consumer trust by eliminating phishing attempts and verifying genuine companies to consumers.
The annual cost of fraud in the UK could be as high as £193 billion (€215.41 billion) per year, according to a report from Experian, which equates to £6000 (€6696.60) lost every second every day. In fact, online fraud is now the most common crime in the country with almost one in ten people falling victim, according to latest figures from Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW).
More than five and a half million cyber offences are now thought to take place each year, accounting for almost half of all crime in the country. GoVerify technology has been designed to restore trust between customers and their service providers, while simultaneously preventing fraudsters from obtaining personal and sensitive data.
Where many solutions focus on verifying individuals to companies, GoVerify puts control back in the hands of consumers. The technology enables consumers to authenticate the companies and government organisations that are contacting them by verifying if calls, emails, SMS/texts, letters, invoices and physical goods are genuine, without giving away any personal information. The technology also benefits enterprises by enabling a trusted communication channel to their existing and new customers in order increase engagement and increase sales opportunities.
The verification method ensures that no personal or sensitive data is disclosed as organisations generate and provide each customer with a unique TrustTag. Then, when individuals are contacted by a company, they simply input their unique TrustTag along with a key identifiable piece of information. This enables GoVerify to validate that the organisation is indeed genuine, and not a malicious person trying to steal personal data or commit fraud.
In partnership with Trudera, ST2 Technology will take GoVerify to market by providing the consultation and implementation capabilities to integrate GoVerify with client or cloud-based environments.
Colin Paterson, co-founder and CTO at Trudera, commented: “The latest research shows that each year in England alone ten percent of people are falling victim to online and offline fraud and there is no sign of decline. As a result, consumers are finding it harder to trust who is contacting them,” explained Paterson.
“This means not only is consumer confidence in their service providers diminishing but the organisations are also suffering by being forced to spend millions in online security. The most worrying part of this scenario is that the fraudsters are winning.
“This is precisely why we’re fighting back with GoVerify by providing a new way for consumers to verify that the phone calls, emails, texts and letters they receive are from genuine organisations. We’re confident that this technology will enable organisations to restore trust and confidence every time they want to contact their customers. At the same time, we want to stop consumer data falling into the hands of hackers by encouraging individuals to be more diligent by verifying suspicious correspondence,” Paterson added.
Anne Stokes, CEO of ST2 Technology said: “GoVerify is a compelling solution that puts control back in the hands of the individual. This solution is extremely timely, especially when you consider that it’s near impossible to find someone who hasn’t received an email, call or SMS from a fraudster impersonating a company for malicious gain.
We’re truly excited about this partnership and we’re encouraging organisations and individuals to adopt this technology and prevent fraudsters succeeding in their efforts.”
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