Latest news with #JordanBurris
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
Foreign groups are stealing $1 trillion a year through identity theft – and DOGE is just letting it happen
A new report details how the federal government is ignoring billions of dollars in identity theft-related fraud every year as outdated systems leave government agencies and Americans both vulnerable to scammers. The report from Socure, a firm which sells identity verification services, found that fraudsters are using stolen identities to scam government agencies out of billions and bilk Americans from receiving benefits they are entitled to in the process. The problem is so vast, according to the report, that false or fraudulent claims originating from crime rings primarily based abroad make up between 2 percent to 12 percent of all applications for US government services. Government estimates project that federal agencies annually lose about $500bn to fraudulent claims. Socure's report indicates the number could be nearly twice that high. For comparison, that's more than 10 times the annual budget of USAID, the hub of US foreign aid and soft power now eviscerated by Elon Musk's DOGE campaign and due for rehousing at the State Department. First reported by NBC News, the report went on to find that a lack of identity verification systems at the federal level was having a cascading effect, as scammers often target private entities with information improperly obtained through government agencies. 'There is a real need for fraud prevention solutions which leverage simple consortium data that spans commercial and government programs,' it reads. The report cited basic issues with federal identity verification efforts: callers who connected with agencies were often able to access information by providing information which by itself could have been illicitly obtained, like Social Security numbers and answers to security questions. Red flags, like Social Security numbers that do not match an applicant's date of birth, applications filed from international IP addresses, or phone numbers with area codes that don't match a person's place of residence, are often ignored. 'Today, in many agencies, if someone calls into a call center and says that I'm locked out of my account, many of them will allow them to get access to their account by saying, 'Hey, we'll let you change your name and your password on here,'' Socure vice president Jordan Burris told NBC News. 'They'll probably ask them something to the effect of, 'Hey, can you tell me your name? Can you tell me Social Security Number? Can you perhaps answer this question about a car that you probably had once upon a time?'' One international fraud ring described as 'sophisticated' by Socure's analysis used stolen identities to launch 60 fraudulent claims across 'multiple' agencies during a one-month span last fall. It's a bipartisan problem, too: according to Socure's findings, fraud targeting government agencies jumped during the Covid pandemic as the federal government distributed assistance checks millions of Americans and insituted loan programs for businesses to support workers during lockdowns. The figures never recovered when those programs ended. But it's not part of the 'waste, fraud, and abuse' which either Elon Musk's DOGE effort or the Republican Congress are addressing through federal means and the effort to craft a budget bill that could pass the House and Senate. Republicans in Congress are hoping to find nearly $900bn in savings to fund a renewal of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, but are doing so by instituting work requirements for Medicaid which Democrats say just amounts to a layer of red tape aimed at kicking people off the program. The Republican plan also calls for cuts to food stamps and other changes to Medicaid aimed at lowering the burden for the federal government. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that Medicaid and Medicare together make more than $100bn in improper payments every year. The GOP budget plan includes changes to eligibility requirements that make checks more frequent, but there's no organized push for stronger electronic verification practices. DOGE, meanwhile, is largely sputtering out after taking an axe to USAID and, by most accounts, urging large-scale cuts to federal staff rosters rather than changes to programs to improve efficiency, or even efforts to identify fraud. A website last updated on Sunday operated by the Musk-led effort indicates that his team is taking credit for $170bn in supposed savings, though that number is highly disputed. Elon Musk is expected to take a public step back from his role in the coming days, while his team seems to largely view government programs as fraudulent and wasteful by design, rather than undermined by criminal groups.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The rampant federal fraud that DOGE is largely ignoring
International criminal groups are stealing as much as a trillion dollars a year from U.S. government programs but DOGE has done little to address the problem, according to a new report by a private anti-fraud firm. 'It's the government's dirty little secret—this has been an ongoing effort by nation states and other criminal organizations for years,' said Jordan Burris, vice president of Socure, an identities management firm, a former White House official. 'We've been able to confirm that these coordinated attacks are pilfering government programs and doing so at a velocity that is relentless.' Socure's new report found that U.S. government programs are being attacked by international criminal groups in China, Russia, Egypt, Poland and several other nations—and that international fraudsters were responsible for up to 12% of all applications for government services and loans. The core problem is a failure to properly identify recipients. 'For far too long, fraud has been seen as the cost of doing business in government. But this is a fallacy,' says the new report, which NBC News obtained in advance of its publication. 'As Washington prioritizes efficiency, one of the most significant opportunities to reduce government waste, fraud, and abuse remains under-addressed: strengthening our digital identity verification systems.' A Trump Administration official speaking on behalf of DOGE told NBC News that DOGE is trying to implement new technology and private sector solutions to stop improper payments. But he said those efforts have been met with criticism, such as a plan to modernize computer code in the Social Security Administration. 'Doge is taking common sense approaches that have been done in the private sector and we get criticized for cutting people's benefits,' the official said. 'We are making basic changes to try to prevent fraud, we've made tremendous progress and we are well on our way to uprooting fraud in our government once and for all.' NBC News reported in 2022 that hundreds of billions of dollars were stolen from pandemic relief programs by foreign criminal groups using false identities. They included expanded unemployment relief and the employer loans and grants associated with the Paycheck Protection Program. But anti-fraud experts say the same thing has been happening for years to regular government programs, from Federal Emergency Management Agency hurricane relief to Medicare. A report by the Government Accountability Office last year pegged annual losses to fraud at between $233 billion and $521 billion annually. Burris and other experts say the true number if likely far higher. "You can only measure what you can see when it comes to identity fraud,' said Burris, who previously worked in the White House as the chief of staff in the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer from 2017 to 2021. 'Frankly, the government does not have the right visibility. And so if you were to ask me, I would say that number--you can double and/or triple it.' Another fraud expert, Linda Miller, told CBS's 60 Minutes she believes the losses reach between $550 and $750 billion a year. Burris and other experts credit Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency for bringing attention to the issue of fraud in federal programs. But they say Musk has misunderstood the real vulnerabilities—focusing on foreign aid spending with which he disagrees and making baseless allegations of government employees with unexplained wealth. Experts say the vast majority of fraud in federal programs involves so-called improper payments — money paid in benefits to people or entities who pose as an eligible recipient using a stolen or fake identity. It's a problem that banks and private companies such as Amazon and Walmart have largely solved. Experts say it persists in government not because of corrupt bureaucrats but due to incompetence and inertia, experts say. 'Criminals are using the stolen identities of Americans to pilfer federal and state government programs at a record pace,' according to the new report from Socure,. 'New AI enabled technologies allow bad actors to use increasingly sophisticated fraud tactics to siphon billions away from programs.' 'Researchers from Socure have tracked fraud rings originating in China, Russia, and around the world,' the report adds. 'And these criminals are getting more sophisticated, deploying techniques such as the creation of synthetic identities, faster and in greater volume than ever before.' DOGE has highlighted examples of improper payments by the federal government, but there has so far been no effort to bring in new technology that might stop them, according to Burris and another anti-fraud expert. 'The problem is that no one has actually acted on it, and with the politicization of fraud, I still see no signs of them actually taking any concrete action to change course,' Burris said. The Socure report highlighted examples of suspected fraud rings defrauding government programs, without naming the specific programs. The criminals—two international and one domestic--used stolen identities to apply for government benefits, fabricated business names and internet domains, disguised their IP addresses through VPN providers, and submitted suspicious or mismatched phone numbers and emails, the report says. In most cases, Burris said, federal agencies are not using the kinds of techniques employed by private companies to detect such fraud. 'Today, in many agencies, if someone calls into a call center and says that I'm locked out of my account, many of them will allow them to get access to their account by saying `hey, we'll let you change your name and your password on here,'' Burris said. 'They'll probably ask them something to the effect of, 'hey, can you tell me your name? Can you tell me social security number? Can you perhaps answer this question about a car that you probably had once upon a time?' The person on the other end of the phone will do so,' based on easily obtainable stolen information. Banks and other private companies, by contrast, use artificial intelligence and analytical tools to check for anomalous behavior. Examples include someone claiming to be calling from Connecticut who is actually in China or asking to add a bank account that has never been associated with the presumed beneficiary. 'DOGE claims that this is something that's front and center for them,' Burris said. 'I look forward to seeing what they actually do to try to curb some of these issues.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
15-05-2025
- Business
- NBC News
The rampant federal fraud that DOGE has done little to stop
International criminal groups are stealing as much as a trillion dollars a year from U.S. government programs but DOGE has done little to address the problem, according to a new report by a private anti-fraud firm. 'It's the government's dirty little secret—this has been an ongoing effort by nation states and other criminal organizations for years,' said Jordan Burris, vice president of Socure, an identities management firm, a former White House official. 'We've been able to confirm that these coordinated attacks are pilfering government programs and doing so at a velocity that is relentless.' Socure's new report found that U.S. government programs are being attacked by international criminal groups in China, Russia, Egypt, Poland and several other nations—and that international fraudsters were responsible for up to 12% of all applications for government services and loans. The core problem is a failure to properly identify recipients. 'For far too long, fraud has been seen as the cost of doing business in government. But this is a fallacy,' says the new report, which NBC News obtained in advance of its publication. 'As Washington prioritizes efficiency, one of the most significant opportunities to reduce government waste, fraud, and abuse remains under-addressed: strengthening our digital identity verification systems.' A Trump Administration official speaking on behalf of DOGE told NBC News that DOGE is trying to implement new technology and private sector solutions to stop improper payments. But he said those efforts have been met with criticism, such as a plan to modernize computer code in the Social Security Administration. 'Doge is taking common sense approaches that have been done in the private sector and we get criticized for cutting people's benefits,' the official said. 'We are making basic changes to try to prevent fraud, we've made tremendous progress and we are well on our way to uprooting fraud in our government once and for all.' Hundreds of billions stolen NBC News reported in 2022 that hundreds of billions of dollars were stolen from pandemic relief programs by foreign criminal groups using false identities. They included expanded unemployment relief and the employer loans and grants associated with the Paycheck Protection Program. But anti-fraud experts say the same thing has been happening for years to regular government programs, from Federal Emergency Management Agency hurricane relief to Medicare. A report by the Government Accountability Office last year pegged annual losses to fraud at between $233 billion and $521 billion annually. Burris and other experts say the true number if likely far higher. "You can only measure what you can see when it comes to identity fraud,' said Burris, who previously worked in the White House as the chief of staff in the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer from 2017 to 2021. 'Frankly, the government does not have the right visibility. And so if you were to ask me, I would say that number--you can double and/or triple it.' Another fraud expert, Linda Miller, told CBS's 60 Minutes she believes the losses reach between $550 and $750 billion a year. DOGE's work so far Burris and other experts credit Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency for bringing attention to the issue of fraud in federal programs. But they say Musk has misunderstood the real vulnerabilities—focusing on foreign aid spending with which he disagrees and making baseless allegations of government employees with unexplained wealth. Experts say the vast majority of fraud in federal programs involves so-called improper payments — money paid in benefits to people or entities who pose as an eligible recipient using a stolen or fake identity. It's a problem that banks and private companies such as Amazon and Walmart have largely solved. Experts say it persists in government not because of corrupt bureaucrats but due to incompetence and inertia, experts say. 'Criminals are using the stolen identities of Americans to pilfer federal and state government programs at a record pace,' according to the new report from Socure,. 'New AI enabled technologies allow bad actors to use increasingly sophisticated fraud tactics to siphon billions away from programs.' 'Researchers from Socure have tracked fraud rings originating in China, Russia, and around the world,' the report adds. 'And these criminals are getting more sophisticated, deploying techniques such as the creation of synthetic identities, faster and in greater volume than ever before.' DOGE has highlighted examples of improper payments by the federal government, but there has so far been no effort to bring in new technology that might stop them, according to Burris and another anti-fraud expert. 'The problem is that no one has actually acted on it, and with the politicization of fraud, I still see no signs of them actually taking any concrete action to change course,' Burris said. The Socure report highlighted examples of suspected fraud rings defrauding government programs, without naming the specific programs. The criminals—two international and one domestic--used stolen identities to apply for government benefits, fabricated business names and internet domains, disguised their IP addresses through VPN providers, and submitted suspicious or mismatched phone numbers and emails, the report says. Failure to act In most cases, Burris said, federal agencies are not using the kinds of techniques employed by private companies to detect such fraud. 'Today, in many agencies, if someone calls into a call center and says that I'm locked out of my account, many of them will allow them to get access to their account by saying `hey, we'll let you change your name and your password on here,'' Burris said. 'They'll probably ask them something to the effect of, 'hey, can you tell me your name? Can you tell me social security number? Can you perhaps answer this question about a car that you probably had once upon a time?' The person on the other end of the phone will do so,' based on easily obtainable stolen information. Banks and other private companies, by contrast, use artificial intelligence and analytical tools to check for anomalous behavior. Examples include someone claiming to be calling from Connecticut who is actually in China or asking to add a bank account that has never been associated with the presumed beneficiary. 'DOGE claims that this is something that's front and center for them,' Burris said. 'I look forward to seeing what they actually do to try to curb some of these issues.'
