Tag: identity verification

Veni, Vidi, Verify

Posted on by Oscar Jofre

More than two millennia ago, Julius Caesar said the famous phrase, “Veni, Vidi, Vici”, triumphant in battle. This translates to, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” While the Roman Empire has long since fallen, these powerful words continue to ring true today – only in a different context. When it comes to investment opportunities, there is a simple way to “conquer” the investment process: Veni, Vidi, Verify.


I Came: The Search for Investment Opportunites 

 

With Regulation CF or RegA+, investors have more investment opportunities available to them than ever. Many of these investment opportunities are in startups that have a promising future, ranging from collectibles, MedTech, real estate, and many other growing industries. This is the time to start thinking about how you can use these opportunities to grow your investment portfolio while aligning your risk tolerance with your investing goals.

 

I Saw: Seeking Legitimate Investments

 

The abundance of options available to investors can be considered both a blessing and a curse. Despite the many opportunities available, you must ensure that the company is legitimate and the way you invest. For issuers, the same could be said about making certain investors are who they say they are to protect your company. When investing, it is good to analyze the risk versus the reward of a particular investment. You want to ensure that everything is above board in terms of your investment and there are no underlying additional risks. 

 

I Verified: Confidence Through Verification

 

Verification allows investors and issuers alike to verify the information provided by all parties to help confirm the transaction is legitimate and complies with regulatory requirements. Verification can ensure the quality of an investment with the assistance of data and information, such as:

 

  • ID verification
  • KYC and AML
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Transaction information
  • Company information and history

 

This gives investors the peace of mind to pursue assets knowing that they are making an informed decision and letting issuers know that investors are who they say they are. Additionally, tools such as the KoreID mobile app enhances the process of verification during the investment process. With KoreID, investors can securely manage their investments and personal information to meet KYC requirements. 

Veni, Vidi, Verify helps both issuers and investors ensure that they are making secure investments. Ultimately, verification and adherence to securities regulations create trust between investors and issuers during the investment process.

What is Phishing?

Posted on by Oscar Jofre

No one thinks they’ll fall victim to a cybercrime, but in reality, you’ve likely come across a suspicious email that could be trying to steal login credentials, financial information, or your identity or install dangerous computer viruses. Maybe you’ve received an email that claims to be from Netflix or Amazon, requesting your password, account email, payment information, or other personal information and directing you to an unfamiliar website. These characteristics are the hallmarks of a classic phishing attack, which can lead to identity theft, credit card fraud, ransomware attacks, and more. 

 

Where Did Phishing Come From?

 

The history of phishing dates back to the mid-1990s, when groups of hackers posed as AOL employees and used the instant messaging platform to steal passwords and login credentials. The purpose of these attacks was to use the hijacked accounts to access the internet, rather than pay for access once the 30-day free trial of AOL expired. These hackers were known as “phreaks”, a group of individuals who had a keen interest in studying telecommunication systems. The name “phishing” was used to link these scams to this community.

 

In the early 2000s, hackers began to branch out past AOL accounts to target financial systems to steal credit card information and passwords. Since then, the prevalence of phishing scams has grown exponentially, with 36% of data breaches involving a phishing attack, according to a Verizon report. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, the number of malicious phishing emails grew by 569%, according to cybersecurity company Cofense.

 

How Phishing Works

 

In modern phishing attacks, many hackers use spoofing to disguise an email address, website, phone number, or sender name in the hopes that it will appear legitimate. It could be as simple as changing a number, letter, or symbol so that the URL a hacker is using, without close inspection, is coming from a legitimate source. This will often trick victims into disclosing sensitive information like passwords or credit card numbers, which are then stolen by the hackers. 

 

Protecting Yourself

 

Luckily, there are easy steps to protect yourself against phishing attacks. According to the FBI, companies generally will not contact you asking for your username or password. If you receive an email, text, or phone call requesting this information, that should be a significant red flag. If you receive an unsolicited email with a link, avoid clicking on it. Instead, carefully examine the sender’s name, email address, spelling, and other details about the correspondence to see if there are slight inaccuracies that could point to it being a phishing scam. And, if an email asks you to download something or open an attachment, do not do so unless you can verify that the sender and attachment are legitimate. Also, be wary of the information you share online. Details like birthdays, pet names, schools you attended, and other personal details can be used to guess passwords. 

 

The Importance of Verification

 

Ultimately, the confirmation of someone’s identity can help to avoid potential scams. This can be achieved in the private capital markets by complying with securities regulations. For investors, due diligence and careful research of investment opportunities can highlight potential red flags that could be a telling sign of something too good to be true. At the same time, verifying the identity of a company raising money can provide assurance that it is a legitimate investment opportunity. For issuers, identity verification like AML and KYC confirm that investors are who they claim to be. 

 

Being on the lookout for phishing can help protect your identity and financial information from hackers. Understanding what these scams are and how they work is one of the best defenses available. Stay tuned for the next article in this series, which will shed light on a different type of scam. If you have any questions or topics you’d like to see discussed in more detail, please reach out and share your ideas with us!

Why are Background Checks Important?

Posted on by Oscar Jofre

Money laundering is a global issue, with the United Nations estimating that between $800 billion and $2 Trillion are laundered each year, with 90% of this estimation remaining undetected. Money laundering is the act of taking money obtained through illegal activities and then introducing it into the system to legitimize or clean it and then make use of it. Originally, and most often, this was applied to the actions of organized crime but has expanded to included tax evasion or false accounting. 

 

The United States has multiple laws to prevent this type of activity and reclaim the illegitimate assets from criminals aiming to circumvent the system. Many of these laws directly affect the financial institutions of the nation. American banking and investment businesses need to follow compliance regulations that help in the effort to combat money laundering, including FINRA’s (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) Rule 2090 (KYC or Know Your Client). The Know Your Client rule was introduced by FINRA to require broker-dealers to use reasonable effort to verify the identity of customers (or any other account owners) and assess their risk level. Part of this goal is to add transparency to the financial institutions in America, especially following the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and incorporate Anti-Money Laundering (or AML) compliance into the structure of our institutions.

 

AML and KYC are extensions of the Bank Secrecy Act and the CDD (Customer Due Diligence) Rule. The act, created in 1970, aims, as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network states, “to improve financial transparency and prevent criminals and terrorists from misusing companies to disguise their illicit activities and launder their ill-gotten gains.” So, through the Know Your Client rule, broker-dealers must evaluate the information provided by a potential customer and verify their identity against government documents and assess the risk level they pose towards financial crime. 

 

This activity is a check for any indication of money laundering or terrorism financing. Part of this is a background check or a customer screening, checks beyond their identity. Using the customer’s identity, financial institutes check against various lists, like sanction lists, watch lists, and PEP lists to evaluate if the customer may be engaging in illegal activities. 

 

Background checks get followed by continuous monitoring, allowing broker-dealers to better spot irregularities in the transactions. For instance, in the event of large cash transactions, those typically over $10,000. Amount exceeding this amount must be reported and monitored. All to say that many governments and non-government institutions require compliance to defend against this issue that gets taken very seriously. Throughout 2020, there were several institutions fined for violating AML related compliance. Kyckr compiled these together and found that: 

 

  • Twenty-eight financial institutions were issued fines for AML-related violations.
  • Regulators from 14 countries issued AML-related fines.
  • Fines totaled roughly $3.2 billion USD.

 

Failing to follow the laws and maintain compliance can have serious consequences for financial institutions. Ensuring that you do the proper level of due diligence, follow the Know Your Client rule, and perform a background check can protect your business. 

 

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