The Intelligence Network calls for industry to join together in the fight against cyber fraud

The Intelligence Network, a coalition of 1,500 global members from academia and industry, has today unveiled its vision to tackle the growing issue of cyber fraud. The vision follows an intensive six month research programme, collating extensive input from experts across industry, academia, government and law enforcement, and maps out the changes necessary to significantly reduce society’s vulnerability to cyber fraud.

The Intelligence Network has elected to tackle cyber fraud as part of its commitment to make the online world a safer place. If unstopped, this problem’s cross-jurisdictional nature will continue to bring increased harm to individuals and businesses around the world. Currently, half of all crime is fraud, and half of all fraud is cyber enabled (i), and ‘massive data fraud and theft’ has been ranked by the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Global Risks Report as the fourth most important global risk for the next 10 years (ii).

With its vision for change established, The Intelligence Network is now calling upon industry to join forces in the fight against cyber fraud by consulting on its proposed action plan, and taking responsibility to drive those actions forward.

James Hatch, Chairman of The Intelligence Network, said: “Today marks a turning point in the fight against cyber fraud. This is a pervasive problem that directly impacts individuals every day, and costs the global economy millions. It’s time to make fraud harder for the criminals, but we can only do that by working collaboratively, and that is where The Intelligence Network comes in. Together, our member base comprising cyber and fraud professions across the globe, have examined the cyber fraud landscape and we have developed a vision on how can tackle cyber fraud better.

“Our vision maps out what we need to achieve to tackle this growing global threat. Our next challenge is to ensure co-ordinated change in response. Our global community is already making an impact, and we are now galvanising action.”

A new report published today by The Intelligence Network has identified the four most critical problem areas to be tackled:

The prevailing mind set in cyber security is that organisations should think about “when” not “if” they suffer a successful cyber attack. But the high number of attacks is making it too easy for criminals to access the data they need to commit fraud.

While there is some sharing of information between security teams and fraud teams, sharing across functions and industries is limited and joint action is rare.

Effective cyber security, counter fraud and law enforcement are all critical to tackling cyber fraud, but are currently treated as ends in themselves and have their own objectives and terminology.

The ability of criminals to deceive people is at the heart of both cyber attacks and fraud. Most current effort goes into training people to make near impossible judgements, rather than making their tasks easier.

Jonathan Luff, Co-Founder of CyLon and Steering Committee Member of The Intelligence Network, said: “From large global brands to cyber security start-ups, it feels as though we are finally building an ecosystem that’s communicating meaningfully – something that is desperately needed in the current cyber climate.  This research will make an important contribution to the action plan, enabling real focus and collaboration.”

Dr Hugo Rosemont, Director – Security and Resilience Sector, ADS Group and The Intelligence Network Corporate Supporter said: “We need to move towards a culture where security is as important to organisations and their customers, as user experience. Having established this vision, we can now plot out a valuable action plan that will help all parts of industry make the crucial changes necessary. This needs to be a collaborative endeavour and, if we can improve our collective resilience against attacks, we will ultimately make cyber fraud a harder crime to commit.”

In the report, The Intelligence Network details 22 proposed actions to help make the vision a reality. These will be honed into an action plan during consultation with Network members, and members will participate in working groups to move the plan forward and deliver impactful change.

•    Moving to a two-way trust model between organisations and their customers
•    Celebrating the organisations that share information publicly and act to reduce the social impact of cyber attacks
•    Strengthen channels for businesses to collaborate with law enforcement.

For further information about the campaign, to view today’s report, or to register interest in becoming a member of the community, please visit: