A long time ago (in the early 2000s), I was playing games online. One of my accounts was compromised – the password was changed, and multiple “high-priced” items I had earned were “traded” without my knowledge, to the account of another player. One could easily blame my simple password at that time when there were no rules around password strength. Regardless of the reason, what happened was one of the earliest versions of an account takeover (ATO) attack.

Every year, 2%-5% of the global GDP, or US$800 billion-US$2 trillion is being laundered across the globe. That’s almost equivalent to the GDP of Canada (1,643.40 billion USD in 2020) or Italy ($1,886.45 USD in 2020). Neither the record-breaking heat, nor the intense floods experienced around the world this summer seem to have stopped financial criminals from inventing new ways to hide illegal sources of their income.

Anyone tracking the evolution of the IT industry is probably familiar with the concept of Industry 4.0. Essentially, it describes the process by which traditional industrial tasks become both digitized and continually managed in an IT-like fashion via modern technologies like cloud computing, digital twins, Internet of Things (IoT) sensorization, and artificial intelligence/machine learning.