AI fraud is turning employee trust into a cyber insurance blind spot

AI-generated voices, fake IBAN requests and forged payment instructions are exposing gaps between cyber cover and financial crime protection, IBS chief executive Murat Çiftçi warns.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the fraud landscape so quickly that companies can no longer treat it as a narrow information technology problem, Murat Çiftçi, chief executive of IBS Sigorta ve Reasürans Brokerliği, has warned. According to the company’s statement, increasingly sophisticated scams are now targeting not only systems but also employee judgement, internal trust and the routines that govern payments and approvals.

The most pressing threat, Çiftçi said, is the use of synthetic voices, forged messages and AI-generated impersonation to pressure staff into moving money or changing account details. He pointed to scenarios in which a worker may receive what appears to be an instruction from a manager, a supplier message requesting an updated IBAN, or a QR code directing payment to a fraudulent page. Such tactics can create serious losses without any direct breach of the company’s network, which is why he argues that conventional cyber defences alone are no longer enough.

Industry commentary cited by Sigorta Kulisi and Anadolu Agency suggests that AI-enabled fraud is already pushing cyber insurance towards a more complex future. The coverage question is not simply whether a business has a cyber policy, but whether that policy actually responds to losses caused by social engineering, voice cloning or other forms of manipulation. Çiftçi has stressed that policies often differ sharply in how they treat data breaches, incident response costs, system restoration, business interruption and financially motivated deception.

That distinction matters because a payment made after an employee is tricked into acting can be assessed differently from a loss caused by unauthorised access to systems. In Çiftçi’s view, businesses need to review cyber cover alongside financial crime and fraud protections, paying close attention to exclusions, sub-limits and the definitions used for social engineering. He has argued that payment authorisation rules, supplier verification procedures and approval thresholds should be examined at the same time as insurance terms, rather than after a loss has already occurred.

Çiftçi also said companies should strengthen their operating controls rather than relying on technology or insurance alone. He recommended a second communication channel for confirming payment instructions, particularly where IBAN changes, unusual transfers or urgent requests are involved, as well as dual-approval mechanisms, clear authority limits and repeated staff training. He warned that AI-generated audio or video should not be accepted as stand-alone proof of identity.

Looking ahead, Çiftçi expects insurers to define AI-related fraud risks more explicitly and to draw a clearer line between cyber exposure and financial crime exposure. He said businesses should not wait for new products to arrive before reviewing their current protection, but should instead identify where their present policies leave gaps and how those gaps intersect with real-world payment processes. That view is echoed in other sector reporting, which says the growth of deepfake impersonation, targeted phishing and fake QR codes is forcing insurers and companies alike to rethink how digital fraud is managed.

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Source: Fuse Wire Services