Towards Mitigating Cyberfraud in the South African Financial Institutions: A Deep Learning Approach

This study demonstrates the application of deep learning approach specifically the deep learning for cyberfraud incidence classification and time series prediction in the South African financial institutions. Secondary data from the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) was employed and the data was trained under the deep learning paradigm using the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model and adaptive moment estimation (ADAM) algorithm for fraud incidence classification and time series prediction of fraud incidences. Overall, there were 94.1% correct classifications as opposed to 5.9% incorrect classifications. Moreover, the accuracy, precision, recall and F1-score of the LSTM classification model were 71.668%, 87.5%, 99.1% and 78.78% respectively. This indicates that the developed LSTM model is suitable for classification purposes. In addition, the model’s performance improves as new datasets are fed in. This is evident as the root mean square error (RMSE) reduced from 253.5116 obtained initially to 150.9 after new data was fed in. This study contributes conceptually, theoretically and empirical to knowledge on cyberfraud mitigation. The results show that the LSTM model can be deployed for fraud classification and time series analysis of fraud incidences. The outcome of this study may promote cyber resilience and sustain the fight against the perpetration of cyber-related fraud in South Africa’s financial institutions. The use of the LSTM model for cyberfraud classification and time series prediction of cyberfraud incidences in the South African financial institutions demonstrated in this study is unique.