New startup to fight online fraud launches in Kazakhstan

A unique start-up project to fight online fraud has been launched in Kazakhstan, Jibek Joly reports.

The new start-up allows blocking websites and applications who make money off by abusing people’s trust. The neural network-based software detects the phishing websites with the help of web crawlers. Developers of the software stated that the project patented in Kazakhstan and the USA has no equivalent in the world.

“Fraudulent resources can appear, theoretically, every second, even now or last week. Thus, they just change one letter in the website link, copy it and post it again. Therefore, a person may not know that the site has changed because he has already blocked it. However, our system will immediately show that the site has been reactivated,” Artur Nurgozhayev, Chief Technical Officer of IT company, said.

In a three-day test, the invention of Kazakh scientists identified 16 fraudulent sites created for the IPO of the major national oil and gas company. It was found out that the number of Kazakh residents registered on the sites amounts to over 10,000 people. Overall, according to the Kazakh Interior Ministry, the estimated amount of loss due to fraud stands at 15 billion tenge.

“Along with business, we will be able to facilitate the work of law enforcement agencies, engaged in considering complaints from defrauded residents. They have no special system to date, while our reports provide real IP addresses of fraudsters. It will help them verify information and find scammers,” Zhanna Akzhanova, IT company’s CEO, said.