DEFRAUDify

DEFRAUDIfy will provide a set of interoperable tools, including dark web scrapers and crawlers and AI enhanced tools, that will enable organisations to deploy Anti-Fraud Operation Centers for the prevention and timely neutralisation of fraudulent criminal activities. The resulting interoperable tool suite will provide situational awareness of suspicious behaviour, reducing the global costs of fraud and increasing end-user faith in digital services.

Illicit activities on the Dark Web are more than just a challenge for law enforcement agencies: each year, individuals in the US lose more than USD 1.4 billion to internet fraud. Globally, the cost of data breaches from cyber-attacks hit USD 2.1 trillion in 2019 – over four times the estimated cost four years earlier. Businesses are further impacted by the establishment of black markets, such as for counterfeit products or prescription drugs. As business-specific knowledge is often required to combat these issues, situational awareness of cyber-crime is a must.

DEFRAUDify’s most important outcome is the reduction of fraud-related costs via the identification of criminal activities, allowing businesses to prepare against them. In terms of efficiency, for instance, the project expects to reduce the detection time for cryptocurrency scams from four hours to ten minutes, allowing businesses to act before large damage can be inflicted. As for coverage, DEFRAUDify’s trend identification tool should be able to uncover more online communities or activities which are potentially harmful for a specific business than currently is possible. This has the additional benefit of increasing end-user trust in digital services and cyber-security.

DEFRAUDify is funded by ITEA3 call 5, project 18007.