Meta, Coinbase, Form Coalition to Tackle Global Online Fraud

Meta, Coinbase, and other leading players in the technology and crypto industries have formed a new coalition called “Tech Against Scams” to combat scams in dating apps, social media, and crypto.  According to a statement released on Tuesday, the group will collaborate to find ways to fight back against the tools used by scammers. 

Also read: Three Arrested for Alleged Fraud in Hong Kong

The coalition also includes Match Group, the owner of Tinder and Hinge, Kraken, Ripple, Gemini, and the Global Anti-Scam Organization.

Major Crypto Firms Join Hands to Combat Online Scams

Tech Against Scams is an initiative that seeks to educate people and provide them with tools to combat romance scams and “pig butchering” frauds. These scams include the creation of fake social media accounts or profiles on dating sites to make their targets trust them before they con them into sending their cryptocurrency.

Also Read: Chinese Authorities Arrest Individual for StarkNet Airdrop Fraud

The participating firms will also be sharing the best practices, threat intelligence, and many other tips that will assist in preventing users from being victims of these online fraud scams.

Guy Rosen, Chief Information Security Officer at Meta said in a statement that the coalition would act as a multiplier for security teams within tech firms to enhance their disruption of scam networks globally. 

“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.” Guy Rosen, Chief Information Security Officer at Meta

In an interview with Fortune, Yoel Roth, the Vice President of Trust and Safety at Match Group, said it is necessary to unite all tech companies to fight criminals. He said that scammers often rely on victims of human trafficking to reach out to potential victims in other countries and entice them into text message exchanges.

There Will Be No “Competitive Issues,” Says Coinbase Cso

Philip Martin, the Chief Security Officer of Coinbase, said that Tech Against Scams was partly based on similar concepts from the previous period, where companies such as Facebook and Google joined forces to identify malicious actors. Martin emphasized that there are no competitive issues in sharing information that could help identify and prevent scammers even though the coalition includes Coinbase’s rivals.

The coalition will share tools and techniques that have been created by its members to combat scams and accelerate the identification of scam networks. Also, this approach seeks to guarantee that once the scammers are expelled from one platform, they cannot easily transfer to the next.

The Coalition Will Crack Down on AI Scams

Roth further claimed that the current wave of scams is mostly controlled by criminal groups in Southeast Asia who use victims of human trafficking to lure targets in other countries. These are people who pretend to be in love or investment gurus who lure victims into sending their cryptocurrency before they vanish.

The coalition’s efforts will also help combat scammers who use artificial intelligence to replicate FaceTime calls, phone calls, and emails, making it difficult for the victims to differentiate between the scams and genuine interactions.

Cryptopolitan reporting by Lawrence Damilola