1Kosmos introduces SIM Binding to BlockID to prevent online fraud

To stop online fraud in India, 1Kosmos has come up with SIM (subscriber identity module) binding capabilities for the 1Kosmos BlockID distributed digital identity platform. With this solution, organizations will be able to meet the RBI Advisory guidelines dated October 13, 2021, to prevent internet retail banking fraud, the company said.

Using a combination of SIM detection and SMS verification, BlockID validates a user's mobile number against the number registered with their financial institution or employer to protect against attacks that attempt to register an unauthorized device/phone number on a customer's account.

Cyber-attacks increased by 500 per cent during the pandemic due to the adoption of digitalization. Siddharth Gandhi, Chief Operating Officer, APAC, 1Kosmos says, "OTP theft is quite prevalent in India. A gullible customer is approached by a fraudster under the guise of updating their KYC form and ultimately tricked into revealing bank details that are used to transfer large sums of money from the victim's account.  With this new capability, 1Kosmos BlockID can curb a significant number of such cases. One needs to be vigilant against OTP fraud. Prevention is better than cure or detection."

Explain how BlockID SIM Binding works,  the company says 1Kosmos customer (bank, payment provider, enterprise, etc.) generates an email with a link to send to end-users. When the recipient (consumer, employee, etc.) clicks on the link, it opens the BlockID app.  This initiates a process to detect the presence of a single or dual SIM. The user is then prompted to choose the SIM registered with their service provider or employer. BlockID then validates that the SIM and phone number match the phone number on record with the service provider or employer. If validated, then the account, user and device are linked.

India suffered a loss of around Rs 1.24 lakh crore in 2020 due to cyber-attacks. According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the rate of cybercrime (incidents per lakh people) in the country climbed from 3.3 per cent in 2019 to 3.7 per cent in 2020.

There were 4,047 cases of online banking fraud, 1,093 OTP frauds, 1,194 credit/debit card frauds, and 2,160 cases of ATM fraud detected in 2020. As per the NCRB statistics, Uttar Pradesh has the most cybercrime cases with 11,097, followed by Karnataka (10,741), Maharashtra (5,496), Telangana (5,024), and Assam (3,530). However, with 16.2 per cent, Karnataka had the highest crime rate, followed by Telangana (13.4 per cent), Assam (10.1 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (4.8 per cent), and Maharashtra (4.4 per cent), according to the NCRB data.

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