On February 14, 2022, the National Bank launched the All-Ukrainian information campaign on payment security #DefrauderGoodbye. It will be a continuation of the first such campaign, which was successful in 2020. Its aim is to raise public awareness of cyber hygiene and promote a culture of safe behavior in cyberspace, as well as to remind about the basic rules of security of non-cash payments.
The topic of cybersecurity and payment fraud remains relevant around the world and Ukraine is no exception. In particular, the National Bank notes an increase in fraudulent activity last year.
"If we talk about the level of losses from illegal actions with payment cards in the total volume of all such transactions, it remained relatively low.
Last year, illegal actions or suspicious transactions on expenditure transactions using payment cards accounted for UAH 65 to UAH 1 mio. This is not much, but more than in 2020 year: then it was 48 UAH, - said Deputy Governor of the National Bank Oleksiy Shaban. - That is why we believe that we need to remind citizens about the rules of secure online payments and behavior in cyberspace. After all, the main weapon against fraudsters today is awareness."
The most popular method of payment card fraud in Ukraine, as well as world-wide, traditionally remains social engineering, through which people themselves transfer money to scammers or disclose to them the data of their cards.
Andriy Podderyogin, Director of the Payment Systems and Innovative Development Department of the National Bank, said that, on the one hand, the National Bank sees a continuation of the positive trend of replacing the form factor of purely magnetic stripe payment cards with more secure chip cards. This was reflected, in particular, in the volume of fraud in such channels, which use a physical card - a retail chain and ATMs. Thus, by UAH 1 million of expenditure transactions using payment cards, the amount of losses from fraud in the retail network decreased from 61 UAH (in 2020) to 40 UAH (in 2021), in ATMs - from 33 UAH (in 2020) to 29 UAH (in 2021).
Also last year, the average amount of fraudulent transactions in the retail network decreased by almost 45% - from 1,984 UAH (in 2020) to 1,086 UAH (in 2021). On average, one illegal operation in 2021 year accounted for about UAH 1,600, which is 16% less than in 2020 year (UAH 1,900).
"At the same time, we observe that for UAH 1 million of expenditure transactions with payment cards made on the Internet, the amount of losses increased from 61 UAH (in 2020) to 114 UAH (in 2021)," - Andriy Podderyohin stressed. - If we compare Ukraine and Europe, the indicator of relative losses from the total volume of transactions with payment cards remains much lower. In Ukraine it is 0.0065% (UAH 65 UAH of losses per UAH 1 million), and in the EU countries, according to the European Central Bank, this figure is several times higher and reached 0.036% in 2019 (EUR 360 of losses per EUR 1 million).
In fact, fraud over the Internet is a global trend. And in most cases, people fall victim to fraud due to non-compliance with the basic rules of payment security.
In 2021 year, Ukrainians more often chose non-cash payments and online purchases, which was due to both the continuation of quarantine restrictions and changes in the habits of payment card users. This encouraged fraudsters who did not stop trying to deceive citizens, including in cyberspace.
“Ensuring a high level of cybersecurity in the financial sector is one of the main goals of the National Bank. We have a comprehensive approach to solving this problem, regulating key aspects of cybersecurity, increasing the potential of the National Bank's Cybersecurity Center, increasing the competence of employees of cybersecurity units of Ukrainian banks, - said Deputy Head of the NBU Cybersecurity Center Roman Proskurovsky. - At the same time, the topic of raising cyber awareness and safe behavior of citizens - clients of financial institutions in cyberspace is also very important for us. In particular, reliable password protection for accounts. Especially tied to the financial phone number, because it is the main means of interaction between financial institutions and their customers. In fact, it is the customer's identifier, which allows him to access the management of his funds. Therefore, it is important to follow the appropriate rules for the safe use of financial phone numbers.
Thus, an important area of the campaign will be to explain the simple rules to follow when interacting with cyberspace, in particular in financial matters - it is desirable to have a separate phone number to interact with the financial institution, register it and "link" to your passport data, carefully monitor where the information about the financial number is located, control your mobile phone and do not leave it unattended.
"In 2021 year, the cyber police managed to document criminal activities and bring to justice more than 2,000 criminal proceedings related to Internet fraud, 422 criminals were involved in their commission. Also, more than 6,600 proceedings are still pending. By the way, fraudulent actions on the Internet make up almost 70% of all appeals received by the cyber police. The most common fraudulent schemes in 2021 were: the sale of non-existent goods, pseudo-money, telephone fraud, phishing resources for embezzling money or collecting personal data, stealing money on the basis of profits and asking friends for help on social networks. In total, last year, according to cases recorded by the National Police, cybercriminals cheated citizens by more than UAH 193 million, "said Yevgeniy Doroganov, head of the cybercrime department of the Cyber Police Department.
"Agroprosperis Bank is happy to support the new campaign of the National Bank to jointly provide Ukrainians with the necessary information that will help make their card payments secure and funds protected. This is, of course, an important initiative to raise financial awareness and develop useful payment habits, which, in turn, will contribute to increasing the level of welfare and protection of the population," said Serhii Shchepanskyi, Agroprosperis Bank Chairman of the Management Board.
The information campaign will last for the next three months in all regions of Ukraine. As part of the campaign, the National Bank and its partners will inform citizens on how to protect themselves from payment fraud, in particular through the updated thematic web page #DefrauderGoodbye with detailed information about the campaign and rules of conduct in cyberspace.
