SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Facebook on Thursday said that its Messenger app will be watching behind the scenes for scammers using the smartphone communication system.
Safety notices will pop up in Messenger text chats if activity taking place in the background is deemed suspicious by artificial intelligence software, according to director of privacy and safety product management Jay Sullivan.
He said the new safety feature "will help millions of people avoid potentially harmful interactions and possible scams without compromising their privacy."
The feature began rolling out to the Messenger app tailored for Android-powered smartphones in March and will head to Messenger on iPhones next week, according to Facebook.
"Too often people interact with someone online they think they know or trust, when it’s really a scammer or imposter," Sullivan said.
"These accounts can be hard to identify at first and the results can be costly."
Artificial intelligence software scans for scammers based on account behavior, such as sending messages in bulk targeting demographics or geographies, according to Facebook.
Warning notices pop up before people respond to messages of possibly dubious origins.
Since the feature does not involve looking at what is in messages, it should continue to add a layer of safety when Messenger takes to encrypted missives as planned by Facebook.
"As we move to end-to-end encryption, we are investing in privacy-preserving tools like this to keep people safe without accessing message content," Sullivan said.
Messenger already uses software tools to fight spam and thwart efforts by adults to contact minors they don't appear to know.
Messenger has been ramping up capabilities and security as use of online tools to communicate and socialize surges due to restrictions of movement during the pandemic.
Facebook recently unveiled a new video chat service with virtual "rooms" where people can pop in to visit friends, aiming at users turning to the popular Zoom platform during the pandemic.
Agence France-Presse
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI - India's federal police detained two employees of Punjab National Bank, the state-run lender that says it has been the victim of a $1.77 billion fraud, in the first arrests in a fast-widening probe into the country's biggest-ever bank scam.
Gokulnath Shetty and Manoj Kharat are suspected of steering fraudulent loans to companies linked to billionaire jeweler Nirav Modi and entities tied to jewelry retailer Gitanjali, which is led by Modi's uncle, Mehul Choksi.
India's Income Tax department warned in an internal note seen by Reuters that domestic banks could take a hit of more than $3 billion from loans and corporate guarantees provided to Modi and Choksi.
The arrests, late on Friday, came 2 days after India's second-largest state-run lender said it had been hit by massive fraud, sending its share price tumbling.
The accusations against the 2 relatively junior PNB officials were detailed in the lender's disclosure, and also contained in a preliminary police report.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) also arrested a third person, Hemant Bhat, whom a source described as the "authorised signatory" of the companies tied to Nirav Modi.
All three appeared before a hot, packed courtroom in Mumbai on Saturday afternoon, where they were ordered to remain under police custody until March 3 to allow the CBI to continue its investigation. No charges have yet been laid.
"CBI must get fair chance to investigate this very serious offence, which has consequences for the country's economy," said judge S R Tamboli, as PNB employee Shetty shifted nervously and blinked frequently. The other 2 stood passively.
Family members of the accused present at the court defended them, saying they were innocent.
Kharat's uncle told Reuters the PNB employee was "just following orders of superiors" and added "he wasn't aware of what he is doing".
PROBE WIDENS
A police source said six more PNB employees were "being examined" after the CBI conducted additional searches at the PNB's branch in southern Mumbai where the alleged fraud took place.
Police sources say Modi, whose high-end jewellery has been worn by Hollywood stars including Kate Winslet, and Choksi left India last month and their whereabouts are unknown. Neither Modi nor Choksi have so far commented on the allegations.
Gitanjali has previously denied Choksi's involvement in the fraud and said he would take "necessary legal action" to get his name removed from the police case.
TV station NDTV on Friday reported Modi was at a suite in a New York hotel, citing household staff who answered the door.
On Saturday, a police source said that the CBI had sent a notice through Interpol in a bid to help locate Modi.
Meanwhile the Enforcement Directorate, India's financial crime agency, said on Saturday it conducted additional searches at 21 locations of companies tied to Modi, seizing 250 million rupees ($3.89 million) in precious stones, metals and jewellery.
Both authorities have conducted dozens of raids since PNB disclosed the fraud, targeting PNB, Modi and Choksi, with the Enforcement Directorate now having seized diamonds, gold and jewellery worth 56.7 billion rupees.
A tax department spokeswoman told Reuters officials had seized 29 properties and 105 bank accounts linked to Modi.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
The biggest bank fraud in India's history has sent rumbles through India's financial system, raising fears about the scale of problems in the banking sector that is already saddled with $147 billion of soured debt.
PNB said on Friday it was running an audit of its systems to prevent a recurrence of such a fraud, but did not see a long-term hit to its operations. The bank, which has $120 billion in total assets, has lost more than a fifth of its market value since it disclosed the fraud.
The Hindu newspaper reported on Saturday that the Central Vigilance Commission, which investigations corruption in the government, has summoned senior officials of the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Ministry to assess how all internal checks and balances failed to detect the fraud.
PNB officials were also summoned, the report said, citing an official aware of the development.
The RBI did not reply to an emailed request for comment. A Finance Ministry spokesman was not immediately reachable.
Scrutiny of banks' technical systems will intensify even further after India's City Union Bank Ltd on Saturday said it had suffered 3 "fraudulent remittances" of nearly $2 million that had been pushed through the SWIFT financial platform.
The case was reminiscent of the $81 million cyber heist that hit Bangladesh's central bank in 2016.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
