CRL Speaker Series - Dr. Benoît Dupont

Online Fraud: The Digital Pandemic 

Online fraud has been on the rise for several years and now represents the no. 1 crime in Canada by volume. It affects a variety of victims with very diverse profiles.

Online fraud victims are not limited to unsophisticated, excessively naive or greedy individuals. Even experienced users can be manipulated by advanced social engineering techniques. Research has shown that certain psychological biases such as overconfidence, optimism or confirmation, may enhance the susceptibility of some people to fall victim to these fraudulent schemes. These psychological factors are exploited by fraudsters to manipulate their targets. After having provided an overview of current online fraud trends in Canada and Western countries, this presentation will examine the psychological dimensions of scams: how cyber-offenders leverage cognitive biases to precipitate errors of judgement, the unfulfilled needs of scam victims beyond financial compensation, and opportunities to use these insights to craft more effective interventions and prevention strategies. I will also discuss how AI is being deployed by online scammers to enhance their schemes’ effectiveness and supercharge their profits.    

About the speaker: 

Dr. Benoît Dupont is a Professor of Criminology at the Université de Montréal as well as the Canada Research Chair in Cyber-resilience (external link)  and the Endowed Research Chair for the Prevention of Cybercrime. Professor Dupont also serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Cyber Thread Exchange, on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Council of Canadian Academies, and as a member of CATAAlliance’s Cybercrime Advisory Council. His research focuses on the governance of cybersecurity, cybercrime networks and the design of effective prevention policies, and cyber-resilience.