Topic starter
22/06/2026 10:04 am
TL;DR: Across 3,000 years of fraud, the tactics change from counterfeit coins and false weights to deepfakes and fraud-as-a-service, but the psychological levers stay the same: trust, fear, greed, urgency, and authority, according to Sumsub. The history matters because modern deception now scales faster than human verification cycles can keep up.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by SumSub: “From Alchemy to Algorithms: A History of Fraud”.
Key questions
Q: How should security teams verify high-risk requests when impersonation is convincing?
A: Use a verification path that cannot be satisfied by the same channel used to make the request.
Q: Why do AI-generated scams still succeed even when users know about phishing?
A: Because awareness alone does not stop pressure, familiarity, and speed from shaping decisions.
Q: What breaks when organisations let urgency override normal approval steps?
A: The control that breaks is the pause between request and action.
Practitioner guidance
- Introduce independent verification for high-risk requests Require callback, out-of-band confirmation or a second trusted channel before approving payments, credential changes or exception requests.
- Add friction to urgent approvals Force a pause or secondary review when a request arrives with urgency, secrecy or pressure to bypass normal process.
- Separate identity proof from transaction approval Do not let a single convincing message or video interaction both establish legitimacy and authorise an irreversible action.
Bottom line: Fraud keeps succeeding because it exploits stable human and organisational behaviours, not because attackers keep inventing entirely new psychology.
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This topic was modified 1 day ago by NHI Mgmt Group
22/06/2026 10:48 am
Fraud is fundamentally a trust-control failure, not a novelty problem. The article shows that the tactics change, but the operating principle does not: attackers get people to act before they verify. That makes fraud a governance issue for identity, approvals and transaction controls, not just a training issue. Organisations that treat each new scam as a separate threat miss the stable pattern that binds them together. The implication is that trust must be designed as a control surface, not assumed as an input.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What is the difference between identity verification and transaction approval?
A: Identity verification answers who or what appears to be asking. Transaction approval answers whether the action should happen. Fraud often works when organisations collapse those two steps into one, allowing a convincing identity signal to trigger an irreversible business outcome without separate control over the decision itself.
👉 Read our full editorial: Fraud has always exploited trust, urgency and authority
This post was modified 1 day ago by NHI Mgmt Group