Using someone else’s identity, there were attempts to defraud 2.59 thousand loans for a total of PLN 104.1 million in Q3 2023, the Polish Bank Association (ZBP) said in the 55th edition of its InfoDOK report.
In the last quarter, 46273 documents were reserved in the Proprietary Documents System, and the total number of documents now stands at more than 2.4 million, it stated.
In the period July-September 2023, 2,587 phishing attempts were recorded for a total amount of PLN 104.1 million – the previous record from Q3 2008 was 2,549 (total amount of PLN 98.2 million). Since 2008, when in-depth investigations began as part of the infoDOK report series, 115,100 attempts to defraud loans for a total amount of PLN 5.7 billion have already been thwarted, the report stated.
“Statistically, we have dealt with 28 extortion attempts for a total amount exceeding PLN 1.1 million. We have not dealt with such a significant number for 15 years. The previous record from 2008 was beaten by about 1.5%. Despite appearances, such data may carry positive news for all of us. The upward trend in the effectiveness of “hits” blocking identity and money theft, which has been visible for several years, is a confirmation to us that the direction taken by the banking sector to maximize the security of banking systems and to intensify security and cyber-security education efforts towards our customers was the right one. In particular, the increase in awareness, for example, of the need to take care of securing one’s own data quickly after the loss of identity documents is confirmed by the very high data on the number of reservations in the Restricted Documents System,” said Bartosz Kublik, vice president of the Polish Bank Association (ZBP).
The Polish Banks Association’s Zastrzeżone Dokumenty system is a nationwide database of millions of stolen and lost documents. It protects against phishing using someone else’s identity.
Source: ZBP and ISBnews
