Shruti Kaushik thinks like a detective.
As a Senior Manager on the Bank’s cybercrime team, Kaushik has dedicated her career to combatting the efforts of sophisticated scam artists who spend their days thinking of new and creative ways to defraud TD clients.
The fraudsters are relentless. So is Kaushik.
Every day, Kaushik and the dedicated professionals who work on her Cybercrime Customer & Brand Protection team, focus on seeking out, uncovering, and shutting down new phishing threats that are conceived by savvy crooks.
Phishing is a method used by cybercriminals to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by pretending to be from a trustworthy entity.
Most of Kaushik's team’s efforts are focused on phishing (fake emails), smishing (fake text messages), and vishing (scam phone calls) cons where fraudsters go to great lengths to impersonate an entity's staff, websites, apps, and other platforms to trick people into handing over their personal information.
“A big part of what we do is detect these threats, so we can shut them down as fast as possible,” Kaushik said. “We are very hands-on and extremely proactive with our hunting.”
An early interest in cyber safety
Tracking down cyber threats comes naturally to Kaushik. After graduating from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., with an undergraduate degree in life sciences, Kaushik decided to enroll in the university’s MBA program. Although she loved the sciences, she enjoyed her business and technology courses even more.
Kaushik found her calling during her very first co-op placement at business school.
“My first placement was within the Bank’s enterprise IT operations group. I had such an incredible co-op experience that I knew TD was where I wanted to work,” she said. “The people were so friendly and welcoming. I loved the culture, and I could really see myself working at the Bank long-term.”
After graduation, Kaushik joined the Bank's Technology Rotational Program as an Associate where she worked in different departments over the course of a year. After a few months, she knew she wanted to become a cybersecurity specialist.
“In my third rotation as an Associate, I joined the Cybersecurity Incident Response Team as an incident handler. It was the coolest job. I was thrown into the fire, and I had to learn very quickly,” she said. “But I got to handle complex incidents, and it was super exciting.”
That was almost a decade ago, and Kaushik continues to see opportunities to help protect clients, especially from phishing. “I think the analytical piece of my job is what I really enjoy. I like to do deep dives on things,” Kaushik said. “I just want to dedicate all my time to learning about all things phishing. I guess I’m a nerd.”
The increasing threat of cybercrime
Cybercrimes are becoming more automated, scalable, and harder to detect. Almost every day, there’s a new and different threat to uncover.
Kaushik and her team are also focused on investigating spoofed calls, where fraudsters intentionally falsify the information seen on your incoming caller ID display to trick you. Fraudsters use this tactic to impersonate your friends, family, government agencies, and TD to increase the odds of you answering the phone.
Phishing text messages are also a problem.
“I never remember getting so many phishing text messages as I do now. And they’re getting sneakier,” Kaushik said.
“They will pretend to be a bank, and they’ll send you a text asking if you just spent $800 at a certain store. But here's the catch: they’ll want you to do something, and they’ll want you to do it right away. I'll always tell people, there is never an urgency to act. If there’s any sort of suspicion, whether it’s a phone call or an email you receive, if there's any sort of doubt, just don’t engage,” Kaushik said.
Protecting against fraud
The rise of new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are making it even easier for cybercriminals to conceive and execute advanced shakedowns. Kaushik said it’s so much easier for these criminals to impersonate banks, government agencies, or other organizations with these tools.
The threat of increased criminal activity is the reason why TD continues to invest in and build on its cybersecurity strategy. Kaushik’s team is an important part of the large global security enterprise at TD that is dedicated to helping protect clients from bad actors.
Leading the Bank’s cybersecurity operation is Steve Sparkes, Chief Information and Security Officer, who is focused on helping keep the Bank and its clients safe in the face of increasingly complex and persistent criminal activity.
“Shruti and her team are core to our success,” Sparkes said. “It’s a tough job, but they truly have a defender mindset and are on a mission to detect phishing threats targeting our clients – and shutting them down.”
There will always be new threats that arise, but Kaushik and her dedicated team members are up to the challenge.
October is Cyber Month, a global initiative that serves to remind individuals and organizations to protect themselves from cybercrime.
TD is also part of the Canadian Anti-Scam Coalition, which has brought together some of Canada’s largest and well-known organizations from diverse areas, including the financial, telecom, technology, law enforcement and government sectors to work to protect against scams, a threat that’s hurting Canadians. At TD, the Bank believes that working together to fight scams helps to keep our colleagues and clients safe.
If you'd like to learn more about how you can help protect yourself from phishing scams, read more here.