Getting smart with cyber crime: Fighting fraud with machine learning

The UK's National Crime Agency recently warned that businesses and law enforcement agencies are losing the'cyber arms race." One of the key threats was found to be fraud, with 700,000 cases contributing to the 2.46 million'cyber incidents' of 2015. Of real concern was the NCA finding that cyber criminals remain one step ahead in terms of technical capabilities – but that is beginning to change. The UK government has pledged to spend 1.9 billion on cyber defences over the next five years, with businesses and law enforcement setting up networks and shared threat intelligence in order to fight evolving and increasing cyber threats. There is also a renewed focus on the technologies used to fight cyber crime, with one company deploying machine learning and behavioural analytics in the fight against fraud. British company Featurespace uses adaptive behavioural analytics and real-time machine learning in order to detect fraud in the financial services sector.