Apiiro security researchers have released open source tools that can help organizations detect malicious code as part of their software development lifecycle: PRevent (a scanner for pull requests), and a malicious code detection ruleset for Semgrep and Opengrep static code analysis tools.

PRevent in action (Source: Apiiro)

The tools work by detecting two anti-patterns the researchers pinpointed after analyzing thousands of malicious code instances in repositories and packages: obfuscated / unreadable source code, and dynamic execution (i.e., code execution at runtime instead of at build or compile time).

“Some malicious patterns are common in legitimate code and would cause false-positives (e.g., command-execution patterns). However, we focus on coding anti-patterns – patterns that go against best practices, are rare in typical codebases, but common in malicious code,” Apiiro security research Matan Giladi explained.

The malicious code detection ruleset

This collection of Semgrep/Opengrep rules detects the two aforementioned anti-patterns, in code written in 15 programming languages: Bash, Clojure, C#, Dart, Go, Kotlin, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Lua, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Scala.

It’s designed to run on comment-free code, and has been developed for integration with any CI/CD pipeline, enabling detection at any stage (build, testing, pre-deployment, production, etc.)

PRevent

PRevent, on the other hand, is triggered by pull request events. It scans them for malicious code and comments detections directly in them.

It’s a GitHub app that developers can create within their GitHub organization or account, and deploy to a server.

The application communicates with GitHub and aside from scanning and commenting pull requests when the need arises, it can also be configured to esclude or include select repositories and branches from the scan, block merging until a reviewer’s approval is granted, trigger code reviews from designated reviewers, and more.

“Designed for full privacy and control, PRevent ensures data stays in your internal network (for GitHub Enterprise accounts), or between GitHub and your private server only,” Giladi stressed.

PRevent supports the same coding languages as the malicious code detection ruleset.

“Detection of dynamic execution and obfuscation is simple yet powerful, catching nearly all known incidents and forming a rock-solid foundation for malicious code defense. However, its success hinges on the adoption of correct workflows,” Giladi pointed out.

“For example, our ruleset correctly flags the xz backdoor payload, but without the right workflow, the code just won’t be scanned. Scanning pull requests is a baseline and an essential first step.”

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To kick off the month, Hulu will be streaming the 97th Oscars, hosted by Conan O'Brien, on Sunday, March 2. The show will be airing on ABC and available to all Hulu subscribers, with red carpet coverage beginning at 3:30 p.m. PT and the award show at 4 p.m. PT.

Hulu Original comedy Deli Boys will premiere on March 6 with all 10 episodes of season one. The series stars Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh as Pakistani-American brothers who discover their late father's business, which they are now tasked with, was a front. Also coming to Hulu: the eighth and final season of Roseanne spinoff sitcom The Connors (March 27) and the next season of American Idol (March 10).

On the documentary lineup is Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna (March 11), a Hulu original film about the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust, when Alec Baldwin fired a live bullet from a prop gun. Good American Family (March 19) is a limited true-crime drama series based on the true story of Natalia Grace (Ellen Pompeo and Mark Duplass star as Natalia's adoptive parents).

Finally, there's a new Bill Burr comedy special: Drop Dead Years covers themes like male sadness and dating and will be available on March 14.

Here’s everything else coming to (and leaving) Hulu in March.

What’s coming to Hulu in March 2025

Arriving March 1

• Akeelah And The Bee (2006)

• Alien (1979)

• Alien 3 (1992)

• Alien Resurrection (1997)

• Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

• Alien: Covenant (2017)

• Aliens (1986)

• Aliens Vs. Predator - Requiem (2007)

• The Amateur (1982)

• American Hustle En Español (2013)

• American Hustle (2013)

• The Angry Birds Movie (2016)

• Anger Management (2003)

• Big (1988)

• Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) (2014)

• Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

• Brooklyn (2015)

• Couples Retreat (2009)

• Crazy Heart (2010)

• Dangerous Beauty (1998)

• Firehouse Dog (2007)

• Good Will Hunting (1997)

• High Fidelity (2000)

• Jojo Rabbit (2019)

• L.A. Confidential (1997)

• The Last King Of Scotland (2006)

• The Legend of Zorro (2005)

• Life Of Pi (2012)

• Lincoln (2012)

• My Cousin Vinny (1992)

• The Other Guys (2010)

• The Other Guys En Español (2010)

• Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

• Predator (1987)

• Predator 2 (1990)

• Predators (2010)

• The Predator (2018)

• The Princess Bride (1987)

• Prometheus (2012)

• Pulp Fiction (1994)

• Sideways (2004)

• The Social Network (2010)

• The Wrestler (2008)

• Think Like A Man Too En Español (2014)

• Think Like a Man Too (2014)

• The Truman Show (1998)

• 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

• True Grit (2010)

• The Ugly Truth En Español (2009)

• The Ugly Truth (2009)

• Unbreakable (2000)

• Wadjda (2013)

• War Horse (2011)

• Welcome To The Rileys (2010)

• Whatever Works En Español (2009)

• Whatever Works (2009)

• Wild Target (2010)

Arriving March 2

• The Oscars: Special Premiere

• Love Again (2023)

• Love Again En Español  (2023)

Arriving March 3

• Sensory Overload

Arriving March 4

• The Gutter (2024)

Arriving March 6

• Deli Boys: Complete Season 1

Arriving March 7

• The Banger Sisters (2002)

• Classified (2024)

• Confessions Of A Shopaholic (2009)

• Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) 

• The Inner Portrait (2025) 

• Notes On A Scandal (2006)

Arriving March 8

• Babylon (2022)

• Babylon En Español (2022)

Arriving March 10

• American Idol: Season 8 Premiere

• The $100,000 Pyramid: Season 8 Premiere

• The Benefactor (2015)

• Ca$h (2010)

• Hesher (2010)

Arriving March 11

• Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna: Documentary Premiere

• New Life (2023)

Arriving March 12

• Murai In Love: Complete Season 1 (Dubbed)

• Am I Being Unreasonable?: Complete Season 2

• The Conners: Complete Seasons 1-5

Arriving March 13

• Control Freak: Film Premiere

• After the First 48: Season 9B

• American Godfathers: The Five Families: Complete Season 1

• Brigham Young: Architect Of Faith: Complete Season 1

• Lifetime Presents Women Making History: Complete Season 1

• Parents Gone Wild: Complete Season 1

• Pawn Stars: Best Of: Complete Season 5

• Sentenced to Life: Teen Killers: Complete Season 1

• The First 48: Complete Season 26

• The Boston Strangler 

• The First 48: Critical Minutes

• Monster Hunter (2020)

• Stepmom from Hell

Arriving March 14

• Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years: Special Premiere

• Fight Club (1999)

• Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024) 

• The Last Of The Mohicans (1992)

• The Prestige (2006)

• True Lies (1994)

Arriving March 15

• Premonition (2007)

• Premonition En Español (2007)

• The Roundup: No Way Out (2024)

• The Roundup: Punishment (2024)

Arriving March 17

• The Sabrina Soto Show: Complete Season 1 

• Anora (2024)

Arriving March 18

• Carol (2015)

• Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024) 

Arriving March 19

• Gannibal: Season 2 Premiere 

• Good American Family: Series Premiere

• Hyper Knife: Series Premiere (Subbed & Dubbed)

• Tokyo Revengers: Complete Season 2B (Dubbed) 

• Magi: Compete Seasons 1-2 (Dubbed) 

• Rega Crimson: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed) 

Arriving March 20

• O'Dessa: Film Premiere

• My Strange Arrest: Complete Season 2

• Ol' Dirty Bastard: A Tale of Two Dirtys: Complete Season 1

• The Proof Is Out There: Alien Edition: Complete Season 1

• Rachael Ray in Tuscany: Complete Season 1

• Trapped in the Rocky Mountains

Arriving March 21

• The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed) 

• I've Somehow Gotten Stronger When I Improved My Farm-Related Skills: Complete Season 1 (Subbed & Dubbed) 

Arriving March 22

• The Jesus Music (2021)

Arriving March 23

• The Machine (2023)

• The Machine En Español (2023)

Arriving March 24

• Wildflower (2022)

Arriving March 25

• Big Boys: Complete Season 3 

• Dandelion (2024) 

Arriving March 26

• The Conners: Complete Season 6

Arriving March 27

• The Conners: Season 8 Premiere

• Alone: Complete Season 11

• Biography: WWE Legends: Complete Season 4

• Find My Country House: Complete Season 1

Arriving March 28

• Chosen Family (2024)

• The Line (2023)

Arriving March 31

• The Fable: Complete Season 1 (Dubbed)

• Alex Cross (2012)

• Bachelorette (2012)

What’s leaving Hulu in March 2025

Leaving March 1

• Rubikon (2022)

Leaving March 2

• Simulant (2023)

Leaving March 3

• Benedetta (2021)

Leaving March 4

• Lantern's Lane (2021)

Leaving March 5

• Mark, Mary & Some Other People (2021)

Leaving March 6

• 97 Minutes (2023)

• Rabbit Academy: Mission Eggpossible (2022)

Leaving March 7

• India Sweets and Spices (2021)

Leaving March 11

• Multiverse (2022)

Leaving March 14

• Bad Therapy (2020)

• Bayou Caviar (2018)

• Changeland (2019)

• Flux Gourmet (2022)

• Wetlands (2017)

• You Can't Kill Meme (2021)

• You Laugh But It's True (2011)

Leaving March 15

• Official Competition (2021)

Leaving March 16

• Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)

Leaving March 18

• Captains of Za'atari (2021)

• Manifest West (2022)

Leaving March 22

• Section 8 (2022)

Leaving March 24

• Arts, Beats & Lyrics

Leaving March 25

• American Siege (2022)

• Mass (2021)

Leaving March 31

• Insomnium (2017)

• Night Raiders (2021)

• Snakehead (2021)

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Fortinet announced significant enhancements to FortiAnalyzer, reinforcing its role in driving faster, smarter security operations (SecOps)—all from a single, turnkey hybrid platform tailored for mid-sized enterprises and teams impacted by the cyber skills shortage.

FortiAnalyzer offers a powerful, streamlined entry point to scale an organization’s security operations center (SOC), providing broad coverage for both on-premises and cloud environments from a single platform. With ready-to-deploy capabilities that deliver complete control with centralized visibility, advanced threat detection, and automated incident response, organizations increase their agility and ability to rapidly expand SecOps coverage and use cases without adding complexity.

“Security teams today are stretched thin, yet they’re expected to defend against increasingly complex and targeted threats,” said Nirav Shah, SVP, Products and Solutions at Fortinet. “With the latest advancements in FortiAnalyzer, we’ve eliminated the need for additional SecOps tools, making it the ideal turnkey AI-driven security operations platform supporting on-premises and cloud environments. This is a game changer for lean security teams, allowing them to enhance threat detection, automate incident response, and streamline critical security operations functions from a single platform.”

AI-driven security operations, simplified

As cyber threats grow more sophisticated and the attack surface expands, organizations—particularly those with resource-constrained security and IT teams—struggle to effectively manage security operations. Recognizing this challenge, Fortinet continues to evolve FortiAnalyzer with AI and automation, ensuring that organizations can detect, investigate, and respond to threats faster and more efficiently—without needing a complex, multi-tool security stack.

The newly enhanced FortiAnalyzer delivers:

Unified data lake for centralized visibility – Consolidated network and security logs, security analytics, and compliance reporting from across the Fortinet Security Fabric into a single platform view, with enhanced IoT, SOC, email security, and endpoint dashboards offers deeper insights into high-severity incidents, compromised hosts, and vulnerabilities, reducing complexity for security teams.

Threat detection and AI-powered analysis from FortiGuard Labs – Enriched views with integrated threat intelligence, including the FortiGuard Indicator of Compromise (IoC) and Outbreak Detection subscription to help analysts identify and address vulnerabilities faster. FortiAnalyzer built-in AI capabilities automatically identify high-priority alerts and downloads relevant event handlers, correlation rules, and reports to help organizations understand an attack’s background, timeline, affected technologies, and related threat intelligence. These capabilities have been further enhanced through zero trust network access (ZTNA)-based detections and Safeguarding, which detect harmful content to effectively identify and mitigate emerging threats.

Automated incident response – New prebuilt SOC automation content packs to equip teams with the latest event handlers, playbooks, third-party log parsers, such as Armis Platform, Microsoft Office 365, and more, enabling security teams to contain and remediate threats with minimal manual intervention.

Expanded automation connectors – Enhanced native integrations with FortiAuthenticator, FortiSandbox, FortiWeb, FortiMail, and VirusTotal provide more automation actions, reducing response times and improving incident resolution.

Native integration with the Fortinet Security Fabric – Unified interoperability across Fortinet’s cybersecurity solutions ensures end-to-end protection with AI-driven correlation and actionable insights.

Third-party device and dynamic SOC service support – Integrations with third-party devices and dynamic SOC services ensures organizations can seamlessly deploy FortiAnalyzer within their existing infrastructure and secure their entire ecosystem with a unified platform.

Embedded GenAI-assistance – FortiAI, the Gen-AI assistant built into the FortiAnalyzer user experience, maximizes the product capabilities, analytics, and telemetry to help security teams supercharge threat investigation and response at the speed of AI.

A smarter approach to security operations

With these latest innovations, FortiAnalyzer empowers lean security teams to manage hybrid environments at the level of large, well-resourced security operations teams—without requiring extensive personnel or multiple security tools. By leveraging AI-driven automation, FortiAnalyzer enables organizations to maximize efficiency at scale without complexity, delivering faster detections, smarter responses, and decreased risk within a unified platform.

Current FortiAnalyzer customers with FortiGuard subscription services already have access to the new features and capabilities. Content packs are updated regularly, ensuring that organizations keep pace with emerging threats and enables the expansion of SOC coverage as needs evolve.

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Disney+ is checking its superhero box in March with the premiere of Marvel Television’s Daredevil: Born Again (March 4), the 13th series set in the MCU with Charlie Cox reprising his role as Matt Murdock (Daredevil), blind lawyer by day and vigilante superhero by night. Episodes will drop on Tuesdays beginning March 4.

Also coming in March are additional episodes of the emotion-packed Pixar miniseries Win or Lose (weekly on Wednesdays) and the twelve remaining episodes of season two of Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures (March 19).

A new Disney+ original comedy film is premiering at the end of the month. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip (March 28) is a sequel to the 2014 film Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, based on Judith Viorst's children's book of the same name. The second installment stars Eva Longoria as Alexander's mother alongside Jesse Garcia, Paulina Chávez, Cheech Marin, and Thom Nemer, who plays the titular character.

Finally, Disney+ will get the six-part NatGeo docuseries David Blaine Do Not Attempt, filmed during the performer's trip around the world to explore culture through magic. Two installments will premiere each on March 24 and March 31 (with the final two to follow hopefully in April).

Here's everything coming to Disney+ in March.

Disney Plus series with new episodes weekly in March 2025

• Marvel Television’s Daredevil: Born Again—new episodes on Tuesdays beginning March 4

• Win or Lose—new episodes weekly on Wednesdays

• David Blaine Do Not Attempt—new episodes on Mondays beginning March 24

Movies and complete series/seasons coming to Disney Plus in March 2025

Arriving March 3

• Malawi Wildlife Rescue (S2, 6 episodes)

Arriving March 5

• Morphle: Shorts (S1, 15 episodes)

• Primos (S1, 9 episodes)

Arriving March 12

• Disney Jr.’s Ariel (S1, 4 episodes)

• Port Protection Alaska (S8, 10 episodes)

• Meet the Pickles: The Making of Win or Lose

Arriving March 19

• Life Below Zero (S23, 20 episodes)

• Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures (Season 2)

Arriving March 22

• Animals, They’re Just Like Us! (S1, 6 episodes)

Arriving March 26

• Morphle and the Magic Pets: Shorts (S1, 10 episodes)

Arriving March 28

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip—Disney+ Original premiere

Hulu + ESPN content coming to Disney+ in March 2025

Like last month, Disney+ subscribers will also have access to select content from Hulu and ESPN in March, including live streams of sporting events like the NHL Stadium Series, The Players Championship, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Texas Children's Houston Open, and the NWSL Opening Weekend matches. Here are a few of the other titles coming to Disney+:

• Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

• Castle

• King of the Hill

• American Horror Story

• Tell Me Lies

• Feud

• Bohemian Rhapsody

• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

• Alien

• Predator

• College GameDay

• Pardon the Interruption

• The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny

• No Scope: The Story of FaZe Clan

• Dude Perfect: A Very Long Shot

• Black Girls Play

• Motorcycle Mary

• Long Beach Lifeguards

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On Feb. 11, "volunteer IT consultant" Elon Musk appeared at an Oval Office event to discuss the findings of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency. Among other claims, Musk said that a "cursory examination of Social Security” revealed that people who are clearly dead may be receiving social security benefits.

“We’ve got people in there that are 150 years old,” Musk said “Now, do you know anyone who’s 150? I don’t, OK… I think they’re probably dead, is my guess, or they should be very famous, one of the two.”

In a later post on X, Musk provided some numbers and joked, "Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security."

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Like many hot-button political issues, almost everyone is wrong about this one. Musk isn't pulling numbers out of his ass; he isn't lying about clearly dead people being listed as alive by social security. But he hasn't uncovered any waste or fraud, either.

Did Musk's number come from not understanding computer programming?

Soon after Musk's press event, online folks were speculating that Musk's "150-year-old" number was the result of not understanding how databases are programmed. They're (probably) wrong. This X post explaining the theory has been viewed over 300,000 times:

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

While it would be funny if this was true, it can't be proven and seems unlikely to me. Musk seemed to be pulling a "shocking" number out of the air, but his figures are roughly in keeping with the data in previous audits of the social security system. There really are a lot of records of people who were born more 150 years ago but who are not listed as dead in the social security database. But this isn't something Musk uncovered and it isn't an indication of fraud or waste.

Are 150-year-olds listed as alive by social security?

At 116, Inah Canabarro Lucas is the oldest person alive. The oldest person ever lived to 122. But according to an audit of the Social Security administration conducted in 2023 (a real audit, not a cursory examination), 18.9 million people are listed in the database as having been born before 1920 but do not have death information on record.

According to the census bureau, there were only 86,000 people alive in the US in 2023 who were over 100 years old. But these "numberholders who exceeded maximum reasonable life expectancies" (as the government calls them) don't seem to be collecting social security benefits.

What is "death," anyway?

The social security system's database, Numident, is huge and complicated. While the Numident does keep track of people's deaths, its purpose is to "administer its programs"—it's not "a comprehensive accounting of all deaths in the country." Ultimately, the database's "living dead" are trapped in perpetual paperwork limbo because "the individuals died decades ago—before the use of electronic death reporting," or so independent auditors concluded. It's a paperwork problem that doesn't necessarily lead to fraud or waste.

Did Elon Musk identify widespread fraud in the social security administration?

He did not. This is not a smoking gun. Despite the nation's roughly 20 million only-alive-on-paper elders, the Social Security Administration sends benefits to around 44,000 people who are over 100, which is in keeping with the number of super-oldsters who actually live in the nation, according to the census. In fact, a 2015 report found 6.5 million active Social Security numbers for people over the age of 112, but only 13 of them were being used to receive benefits—turns out there are much better ways of defrauding social security than collecting a dead ancestor's monthly check for $22.54—the payment a 150-year-old would receive.

Ultimately, Musk has not uncovered fraud or waste. He didn't uncover anything. He brought this issue to people's attention, but the bottom line is, social security "vampires" are a clerical problem we've known about for a long time that has already been addressed and doesn't appear to be that big of a problem.

The truth about social security is not very sexy

Another social security audit—we actually do these regularly—published in 2015 stated that 6.5 million people on the Numident database were listed as older than 112. Benefits were sent to 266 beneficiaries (most of them were probably under the age of 112, despite what the database said—things get messy when dealing with paperwork from the early 20th century).

To be fair, the 2015 audit and the one conducted in 2023 reached roughly the same conclusion as Musk: We should probably fix this. "Death information missing from the Numident and the DMF hampers both SSA and Government-wide efforts to prevent and detect fraud and misuse," concluded the 2023 audit. So why don't we fix it?

What is "government waste," anyway?

The government doesn't just check "yes" in the field for "is this person dead?" for people who were born more than 120 years ago because, according to the SSA, adding "presumed dead" to records in the Numident system would be "costly to implement, would be of little benefit to the agency, would largely duplicate information already available to data exchange consumers and would create cost for the states and other data exchange partners.” In contradiction to the conclusion that Musk and co. reached, the SSA thinks it would be more wasteful to fix the problem than to just leave it alone: The Treasury Department already has anyone over a certain age on its Do Not Pay List anyway, so they're just letting the files not list a death date because that's free.

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We're now up to the second public beta release of Android 16, which brings new features across a variety of areas, including photography, system security, device management, and foldable form factors.

The official Google blog post announcing the beta release leads with the media and camera updates. If you want more of a say over how your photos and videos end up looking, you can make use of additional manual control options covering exposure, color temperature, and tint. There's also support for Ultra HDR images if you're saving your snaps in the HEIC image format.

Essentially, these are new hybrid options between fully automatic processing and fully manual processing, so those who are more comfortable playing around with settings such as white balance will be able to pick and choose the tweaks they make. It'll also mean a broader range of effects are possible without any extra edits in an app.

Some other features haven't been officially announced by Google, but have been spotted by the Android community. Most of them have been reported by the team at Android Authority. They found new protections limiting what you can do on calls, for example—so you won't be able to sideload apps or change any accessibility options while you're actually talking on the phone.

Android 16 will give you more control over photo and video composition. Credit: Google

The reason? Those are two of the more common tactics used by scammers to try and gain access to handsets. With these protections in place, there'll be less of an opportunity to install malware or take control of the phone remotely.

The latest Android 16 beta also enables you to double-press the power button to launch the camera or Google Wallet. Previously, it would just open the camera, with no alternative option, so this gives you a bit more flexibility (and there may well be more alternatives to come).

A new widget has also appeared that makes the process of switching users on an Android device more straightforward. Switching to a different Google account only takes a tap on the widget, so no diving into the Settings menu or the Quick Settings panel is needed.

If you're a Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold owner, meanwhile, it looks as though Android 16 beta 2 has added a "robust open/close detection" feature that should be helpful: As reported by 9to5Google, this means that the device will be able to more accurately detect its open or closed state even with magnetic accessories attached (these accessories can sometimes interfere with the relevant sensors).

Another new feature improves open/close detection on foldable devices. Credit: Lifehacker

The feature doesn't seem to be fully live yet, however, which may be why Google hasn't mentioned it. Presumably after some refinement it'll become available for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and other foldable Android devices.

A small tweak to the interface means the Extra Dim setting on Pixel 9 phones is now more accessible, while it looks like more information and options are coming to the Battery Health page tipped to be coming to Pixel handsets.

There are also some minor edits to health and fitness permissions: Access to data such as heart rate and skin temperature will now be given on a more granular basis, which should make it easier for users to see which apps are accessing which bits of data (and which data is passing through the Health Connect protocol).

As always with beta updates like this, bugs are to be expected, and any of these features might be removed or revised before the full launch of Android 16—expected sometime in the second quarter of the year. If you've got a compatible Pixel device, you can try out the beta now, but this isn't recommended for a main device that you rely on.

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Unit21 launched its new scams solution that helps financial institutions and fintechs detect and stop scams before they cause financial harm.

Using AI automation, the new solution can be integrated into a fraud team’s workflow to accelerate investigations and response times while also incorporating IP insights and consortium signals to prevent and detect scams before they hit consumer financial accounts.

Advancements in technology have allowed criminals to scam consumers and businesses at unprecedented speed and scale. Data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) show that consumers reported losing more than $10 billion to fraud in the U.S. in 2023, the largest reported loss ever. Additionally, Unit21’s 3rd annual State of Fraud & AML report found that 34% of respondents saw a more than 25% increase in scams, compared to the previous year.

“Data from our State of Fraud & AML report demonstrates the significant threat scams cause to financial institutions and the need for a more holistic view of consumer accounts to address these threats,” said Trisha Kothari, CEO of Unit21. “Our customers can now access our unique multi-layered technology that uses behavioral detection, consortium data, and IP data enrichment to stop scammers in their tracks.”

Solving the scamdemic using the right technology

Unlike many traditional fraud detection tools that only rely on reactive investigations, Unit21’s scams solution is built for real-time prevention, stopping scammers before they succeed.

• Shut down fraudulent logins in real-time: IP data enrichment flags VPNs, proxies, Tor, and bots to prevent fraudulent access.
• Expose fraudulent accounts before they act: Counterparty risk blocks known scammers and mule accounts, stopping scams before they spread.
• Deploy new scam rules instantly: Pre-built scam rules provide ready-to-use scam detection for immediate protection.
• Validate unusual financial behavior: Our AI-Agent identifies fraudulent behavior automatically empowering you to combat scams at scale.
• Seamless integration to other fraud vectors: Works alongside check fraud, ACH fraud, and other financial crime prevention measures in one unified platform.

Kothari added that criminals are also taking advantage of the lack of regulatory guidelines around the financial liability of scams in the U.S. and infiltrating consumer bank accounts in any way they can.

“We hope by giving our customers a head start on detecting scam behavior; we are helping to prevent the irreparable damage they cause.”

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