Digital fraud continues to flourish, with recent surveys finding that security breaches have increased 67 percent since 2014 and 11 percent since 2018. Casualties of these breaches in the first half of 2019 alone include 4.1 billion personal records exposed in a variety of ways: 52 percent through hacking; 33 percent via phishing; and 32 percent through social engineering, with many involving more than one method.
Organizations and security developers are investing billions of dollars in fighting these fraud attempts. Worldwide spending on security systems is projected to hit $131 billion by the end of 2020, and $174 billion over the next two years. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications often form the core of these cybersecurity systems and are being deployed across banks, retailers, telecommunications companies and many other businesses.