BOSTON — It wasn’t just the uptick in online credit card and bank account applications that caught the attention of experts, it was the timing.
A spike in applications in the middle of the night, when most people would usually be sleeping, was a red flag.
“A lot of our internal monitors went off,” says Johnny Ayers, CEO of Socure.
Ayers’ company uses Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to help companies and governments identify potential fraud and protect consumers from having their identity stolen. Socure’s systems recently uncovered an effort to use the names and personal information of Massachusetts residents to open banking and credit accounts.
“As you and I are sleeping, we’re not opening bank accounts and credit cards,” Ayers told Boston 25 News. “Transactions involving U.S. citizens usually drops of a cliff [at night].”
The pattern of activity, Ayers said, was more closely aligned with the type of activity seen in Chinese time zones at those hours. It’s one reason he suspects China may be behind the fraud attempts. A closer look at IP addresses showed most of the online applications were nowhere near Massachusetts.
So far, Socure says it has detected efforts to open 9,100 fraudulent checking and credit accounts using the information of Massachusetts residents. Efforts appear to be ongoing.
“[I]t’s clear that the perpetrator(s) are pairing stolen Massachusetts identities with Massachusetts-based phone numbers to appear more legitimate,” Socure announced in an online post.
Ayers says it’s likely the information came from previously reported data breaches at companies in the state. In 2023 alone, the Commonwealth reported a total of 2,429 breaches impacting 6.9 million people, or practically every person in the state.
Companies are legally required to report data breaches affecting residents’ private data to the state’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation.
“We did see fraudsters using particular stolen information from particular breaches that was put on the dark web,” Ayers said.
Consumers can take steps to protect their identities and their credit. You can get a free weekly credit report from Transunion, Equifax, and Experian. Requesting a credit freeze from the three reporting bureaus will also make it impossible for anybody to open a new credit account in your name without you first being notified. If you notice an account in your credit reports that you did not open, you can take steps to close it.
Ayers also recommends updating your passwords and making sure you’re not reusing the same password across multiple accounts.
“Unfortunately, once you are a part of one of these breaches and your identity data is out in the open, it’s a high probability that fraudsters are going to put it to work,” he says.
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