Payment fraud is a critical and growing crisis in South Africa. It is costing billions of Rands annually and showing massive spikes in digital banking and mobile app fraud. Criminals are increasingly utilising advanced social engineering, AI deepfakes, and bank-impersonation scams to manipulate victims into authorising transactions. This is according to LanDynamix – a leading technology and cybersecurity specialist organisation  providing security solutions and managed services across South Africa.

LanDynamix Founder and CEO, Peter Clarke - an ICT specialist with decades experience and profound knowledge of the SA market, says:  “As payment fraud continues to escalate in our country, businesses are being urged to rethink their approach to cybercrime. While investment in advanced security technologies remains essential, experts warn that technology alone is no longer enough to protect companies against increasingly sophisticated attacks.”

The South African Banking Risk Information Centre issued a Risk Alert in February of this yearhighlighting that Remote Access Trojan (RAT) attacks are rapidly emerging as one of the most sophisticated and fastest-growing enablers of digital fraud. This trend affects consumers and organisations nationwide. Unlike credential theft scams that rely primarily on stolen usernames and passwords, RAT based attacks can provide criminals with remote control of a victim’s device, enabling them to operate in real time as if they were the legitimate user.

“As attackers become more sophisticated, organisations must adopt a layered defence strategy that combines people, processes and technology. Many organisations still view payment fraud as purely a cybersecurity issue, when in truth it is equally a financial governance challenge. The strongest technical controls can still be bypassed if an employee is manipulated into changing banking details or authorising an urgent payment without following established procedures,” he adds.

Clarke emphasises that while strong financial controls help reduce human risk, technology provides the visibility and intelligence needed to identify and stop sophisticated attacks before financial losses occur.

“A modern fraud prevention strategy should include outbound email protection through Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) to prevent domain spoofing and business email compromise. It is also essential to protect inbound email security by using platforms such as Mimecast or Microsoft Defender for Business which identify  malicious attachments, phishing emails and credential-harvesting attempts. Advanced detection and response capabilities across Microsoft 365 environments helps to establish behavioural baselines and identify anomalous user activity, suspicious login attempts and unauthorised mailbox forwarding rules.

“Identity and access management also play a critical role. Businesses need to implement conditional access policies, multifactor authentication (MFA), least-privilege access controls and continuous monitoring to ensure that compromised credentials alone cannot be used to execute fraudulent transactions,” Clarke notes.

He confirms technology is not the only mechanism to solve this payment fraud, below is a short list of common sense financial controls that can be implemented: 

• Not accepting bank-detail changes by email alone.
• Always verifying changes by phone using trusted numbers.
• Insist on independent bank verification and documented approvals for exceptional payments.
• Enforce separation of duties for loading versus authorising payments
• Maintain verification procedures even in urgent situations.

“The combination of robust governance controls with intelligent security technologies creates multiple layers of defence which significantly reduces the likelihood of successful payment fraud.

“The bottom line is that cybercriminals are no longer simply hacking systems, they  manipulate people and exploit weaknesses in business processes. Companies combining  sound financial controls with modern security technologies will be far better positioned to detect suspicious activity, prevent fraudulent payments, and minimise financial loss,” Clarke concludes.