Coinbase, Meta, and other tech companies collaborate to fight online scams.
Takeaway points
- Coinbase, Meta, and other tech companies collaborate to fight online scams.
- The aim is to help companies fight online fraudsters that scam users across industries.
- The coalition includes Coinbase, Meta, Kraken, Match Group, the parent company of Tinder and Hinge, Ripple, Gemini, and the Global Anti-Scam Organization.
Fight against scams
Coinbase, in a post on Tuesday, announced the “Tech Against Scams Coalition,” a coalition formed by tech companies across financial institutions, social media, crypto, and dating apps. The aim is to help companies fight online fraudsters that scam users across industries.
According to a report by PRNewswire, the coalition includes Coinbase, Meta, Kraken, Match Group, the parent company of Tinder and Hinge, Ripple, Gemini, and the Global Anti-Scam Organization. Tech Against Scams will serve as a primary body where tech companies will come together to find ways to take action against the tools used by scammers and educate their users.
Philip Martin, Chief Security Officer at Coinbase, said that online scamming is increasing and industry leaders need to come together to tackle the problem and create a safer digital environment for their users.
“Fraud schemes are becoming increasingly sophisticated, underscoring a greater emphasis on the importance of industry leaders coming together to tackle fraud and secure a safer digital environment for users. We are dedicated to disrupting emerging online scams through collaboration, information sharing, and enhanced consumer education.” Philip said.
Yoel Roth, VP, Trust & Safety at Match Group, said that “Tech companies across industries collaborating with each other is essential for preventing criminal activity, and ultimately helps online platforms stay ahead of, and develop effective solutions for, various types of financial crimes. As we work to make it harder for scammers to defraud people, we will also continue investing in new technologies to help disrupt fraud and scams faster, and get people the support and resources they need.”
Guy Rosen, Chief Information Security Officer at Meta, said that “Scammers and the organized criminal groups behind pig butchering schemes target people across many internet services, making it hard for any one company to see the full picture of malicious activity and counting on each of us working in silos. We hope that this coalition will serve as a force multiplier for security teams at tech companies to share threat insights and trends to enable more impactful disruptions of scam networks around the world.”
Brian Bruce, Chief of Operations at the Global Anti-Scam Organization, said that “People around the world lose hundreds of millions of dollars every month. Criminals are constantly adapting by leveraging and adopting new technology to scam on a global and massive scale. As a result, we strongly believe that a multi-sector response with tech and financial companies is necessary to fight against this major transnational issue.”
According to the Global Anti-Scam Organization, the “Pig-Butchering Scam” is a scam that targets dating apps and social media. The scammers do not ask for money directly, but instead introduce victims to a sham investment website or app where victims feel safe depositing funds. There are about 5 types of pig butchering scams, which include: fake investment websites and apps; fake brokers on MetaTrader 4 and 5; fake liquidity mining pools (decentralized apps); group investments and gambling, the report stated.
