Wisely ATP - Protecting 1 billion+ users from scams

Phishing: The Global Challenge

None can deny that phishing has become a significant global challenge, with more than 350-400 million scams reported in 2023 - causing a staggering loss of USD 60 billion. Even in India financial frauds are rising, with 1 in 12 people experiencing SMS phishing attacks monthly.

This can be attributed to various circumstances:

• Low Reporting and Convictions: The absence of pre-emptive identification systems, low traceability of scammers, along with challenging and confusing reporting procedures, have dissuaded many victims from speaking up – with less than 7% of occurrences being reported, often out of embarrassment. This has cut the conviction rate of phishing crimes to less than 1%.
• Evolving Attacks: Hackers are finding new methods and clever pretexts to steal sensitive information, getting users to disclose sensitive information, making phishing faster and more sophisticated.
• Co-opting Legitimate Brand Names: Phishing incidents often occur under the guise of legitimate brands and businesses, dampening customer trust in enterprises.
• Proliferation of Mobile Devices: In the Indian context, the rise of mobile device usage and the relatively cheap cost of SMS channels makes it an ideal environment for phishing attacks. Close to 30-40% of phishing cases take place through this channel.
• Outdated Solutions: Existing solutions, which are often rule-based and slow to adapt, cannot keep up with the elusive threat of phishing attacks.  
  
  

The individual damage caused by phishing attacks can erode customer confidence in both brands and digital platforms. Brand reputations have taken a hit as customers expect brands to adopt the responsibility of fighting phishing, which in turn is hindering overall digital adoption in the country. Comprehensive solutions - which employ the latest technologies to identify and arrest smishing attacks in real-time - are the need of the hour.

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A New Paradigm in Scam Prevention – The ATP Impact

‍The efficacy of a solution lies in its impact.

And we were able to do just that with the successful deployment of Wisely ATP – a product that has piqued the interest of various enterprises ever since its launch at MWC ’23 – fuelling change across the domain of anti-phishing.

Playing a pivotal role in shaping regulatory guidelines and fostering collaboration, we have aimed at creating a resilient defence against the constantly shifting threat landscape. With our telecom partner, we have showcased best-in-class results of a staggering 99%+ efficacy and 0.1% false positive rate over the 3-month regulatory sandbox on live SMS traffic – all under the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

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These learnings were instrumental in prompting a TRAI directive that advised all telecom operators to deploy AI/ML-based systems to combat phishing.

What did this lead to?

• POC’s with four leading private banks in India, ending with a commercial contract with one of the largest banks in FY24.
• Over an 8-week period with a leading private bank, ATP protected 20-25% of the bank’s user base from phishing attacks spanning 10+ use cases like KYC, credit cards, fake loans, etc. Additionally, ATP prevented over 30 million attacks and the identification of 50k unique CTAs for elimination - URLs, WhatsApp, Mobile Numbers, and Email IDs.

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From Blueprint to Breakthrough - How We Did It?

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Our aim as a company is to empower consumers and enable companies. The best way to make this a reality is by taking a holistic and practical approach to the concern posed by phishing. We conducted extensive research on phishing techniques and cybersecurity solutions, prioritising user-centric design principles, while seeking early feedback from enterprises at the concept age.

This led us to the development of Wisely ATP, a greenfield innovation that leverages AI/ML to proactively identify, prevent, and eliminate phishing attacks. It comprises of four patent pending engines that are empowered by cutting-edge tech like CNN, NLP, LLM, deep learning, and web of trust:

• Sender Reputation
• Call to Action
• Semantics
• Evaluation

These engines process live traffic autonomously in real-time, eliminating the need for human intervention while ensuring end-to-end data privacy. By deploying ATP, we have identified 10+ predominant use cases, with banking, credit cards, and job scams being the most prevalent (illustrative messages below). Through self-learning and adaptability, these engines understand new use cases, patterns, behaviours, and tactics exhibited by phishing attacks.

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Additionally, we have pioneered a differentiated ecosystem by partnering with leading tech giants, OTT players, and take-down services such as Google and WhatsApp, while also providing evidence to law enforcement authorities—a united front against the multifaceted threat of phishing.

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Tanla's Wisely ATP stands as a testament to the power of technology in safeguarding digital ecosystems. We will continue to lead the charge in the ongoing battle against phishing, setting new standards for cybersecurity and reinforcing the digital trust that is indispensable for our connected world.

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_{Sources: Tanla Wisely ATP insights, The Global State of Scams Report 2022 – GASA, Infosec Institute survey, Expert conversations with Founder & Chairman of International Commission on Cyber Security Law, Ex-Chief Vigilance Officer PayTM Payments Bank, Ex-Chief General Manager RBI}