A new report by Europol and Trend Micro on international telecommunications fraud shows that this category of fraud, which covers both consumer and corporate scams, not only costs more than €29 billion (around $33 billion) every year, but also leads to major headaches for consumers, companies and law enforcement.
The report states that tackling international cyber-telecom fraud requires “thorough cross-border intelligence sharing and intelligence fusion with law enforcement,” so that “the source, investigative method, and evidence [can] be connected in a way that results in a meaningful number of arrests.” However, this is far from reality because currently most firms deal with this type of fraud themselves. In fact, many companies consider it part of “the cost of doing business” and account for it in their budgets.
Read more: Astronomical costs, geopolitical headaches: Telecom fraud is too big to ignore, report says
