Combating call-center fraud in the age of COVID

Call centers are a fraudster’s dream. Millions of pieces of personally identifiable information (PII) are transmitted from customers to service agents every day. Anyone able to infiltrate these systems — either physically or digitally — can turn around and make a small fortune selling all sorts of valuable information on the Dark Web. In fact, according to Aite Group, 61% of fraud originates in the call center.

During normal operations, security is extremely tight. Agents are authenticated with an ID badge, their arrivals and departures are tracked, and they are not even allowed to have a pen or pencil when taking calls. But these are not normal times. COVID-19 has shifted more than 1 million agents from locked-down call centers to work-from-home systems — weakening physical security strategies meant to prevent rogue actors from exfiltrating information for personal or financial gain.

Now, more than ever, it is critical that organizations with large call center operations take advantage of new, innovative technology to secure the conversation.

Preventing Work-From-Home Security Risks
Agents working from home can’t be monitored and tracked while on the job to the extent they are in the call center. For example, they can’t they be prevented from recording calls or writing down credit card numbers and other financial information. Organizations can’t even authenticate users who log in to their call center platforms with photo IDs — meaning that a family member, a roommate, or even a stranger could impersonate the agent and harvest valuable PII.

Here are three tips that organizations can use to secure the conversation:

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