Consortium Intelligence for Swiss Telco Fraud Defence

• 3rd Party Account Takeover: unauthorised access to legitimate customer accounts, often using stolen credentials. Attackers can place orders for electronic goods or order multiple eSIMs remotely that can be provisioned instantly, providing fraudsters with phone numbers to conduct scams or sell.
• 1st Party Fraud: new, seemingly genuine customers sign up using fabricated information or with manipulated documentation and order high-end electronics, or set up premium subscriptions, with no intention to pay. These cases are difficult to detect as the identity appears legitimate and consistent across cheques.
• Bot Attack / Synthetic Identity: Bot-driven attacks deploy automated scripts to test and exploit onboarding journeys at scale, using synthetic identities to open new accounts that slowly gain credibility. Once trusted, these identities are used for high-value fraud. For telcos, synthetic IDs can be used to acquire devices, eSIMs, or services that can be later sold on, or used in fraud. These attacks are highly scalable and can overwhelm defences that aren’t calibrated for behavioural signals or cross-organisational intelligence.

When fraudsters are blocked by one telco provider, they often pivot to the next. That’s why coordination is key. Through effective consultation with the LexisNexis Risk Solutions Professional Services team, Swisscom and Sunrise were able to utilise a shared framework for cross-organisational intelligence sharing – in this case, being able to provide real-time feedback on known bad devices, phone numbers or email addresses and alerting members when a known bad actor turns to their service. This not only reduces detection time but gives each member advanced warning to prevent fraud before it impacts them.

Reimbursement: A Future Concern?

The UK’s PSR guidelines put shared liability on the reimbursement of scam victims between sending and receiving banks. As other jurisdictions and sectors follow suit, the role that telcos and social media platforms play in the scam process will doubtless be recognised and duly incorporated into regulation.

This legislative action is already being seen in multiple regions. Singapore’s Shared Responsibility Framework mandates that telcos are held jointly liable for scam losses where negligent behaviour is proven. Similarly, the Australian government has introduced the Scam Protection Framework, introducing shared responsibilities between banks, telcos and digital platforms for scam prevention and potential reimbursement. Meanwhile, the EU’s payments reform proposals outline requirements for stronger fraud prevention across all digital channels, placing an explicit expectation on communications providers to work in tandem with financial institutions.

These changes mean scam mitigation is no longer a downstream issue to be handled solely by banks once funds have left a customer’s account, it begins with the telco infrastructure itself.

Responsible data sharing frameworks are increasingly playing a role as a core component of that infrastructure to empower all providers to better mitigate its exploitation by fraudsters.

The Consortium in Action

Results

Within three months of implementation, the Swiss Telco Consortium helped Swisscom and Sunrise to: 

• Identify over 4000 high risk data attributes including significant numbers of synthetic identities and mobile devices showing a high fraud risk
• Achieve a 150% uplift in detection of fraudulent transactions, helping stop significant fraud losses.
• And achieve an almost 100% confidence rating in consortium fraud alerts

The Swiss Telco Consortium shows what’s possible when organisations align around shared intelligence. Fraudsters don’t operate in silos, so neither should industry. At LexisNexis Risk Solutions, we’re proud to support customers like Swisscom and Sunrise in building smarter defences through collaboration and we continue to drive this model globally via the LexisNexis Risk Intelligence Consortia.

Our results prove that innovation isn’t always about who says it first, but who does it best.

James Rushe, Senior Engagement Manager, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions