In the noisy world of digital finance, where transactions are made in the blink of an eye, Yuri stands silently as a watchdog against cybercrime. As a seasoned anti-fraud specialist at Binance, her daily life resembles a real-life exciting game of chess played in the dark corners of the internet where malicious players lurk in the shadows.
It's not a high-profile role, and even Yuri's colleagues rarely know the ins and outs of her work and that of her team in their role as Binance's live firewall. Yuri's role can be summed up in one phrase: to carefully verify user characteristics and behavior to identify potential fraudulent activity and intervene if necessary, thus protecting users' assets on the Binance platform.
When Yuri discusses her work, she beams with enthusiasm and points out that not everyone is as lucky as she is to have found a career at a young age that she not only excels in, but also loves passionately. Sometimes, she feels as if she has spun a net and is ready to catch fish at the right moment. Her happiness stems not only from the feeling of victory over the fraudsters in every battle, but also from the satisfaction of preventing potential victims from suffering financial losses.
Book inspiration
During her childhood, Yuri would spend countless hours after school in an old library near her home where she would eagerly read every detective novel she could find. Sometimes, she would bury her head in crime novels until dark.
At that time, she dreamed of becoming a detective or a policewoman like the characters in her favorite novel. But she was hampered by her vision condition, fear of blood, and ineligibility for active law enforcement service. During her subsequent education and professional development, she discovered that some risk management roles could be that of a “cyber investigator.” She realized that this role would allow her to move between the virtual and real worlds, and fight deceivers and fraudsters.
During her high school years, Yuri showed interest in mathematics and physics. She loved mathematical logic and loved analyzing and examining problems carefully. What worried her parents the most was her immersion in solving problems until late at night. Her motivation was not just to seek one correct answer, but also to explore a variety of simpler solutions.
At university level, I studied electronic engineering. When she wanted an electric skateboard, she bought the necessary components from the market and soldered the circuit board herself. Riding with the wind on the hill next to the school gave her an overwhelming feeling of happiness.
Explore the professional world
Yuri, who is in her early thirties, is characterized by her belief that she can do anything. At the beginning of her career, she was the third employee in the Asian branch of a Silicon Valley anti-fraud company. She started her career from scratch, and her responsibilities included not only building an anti-fraud system, but also equipping the office with tables and chairs.
At the request of one of the company's investors, Yuri and her team began researching different financial fraud scenarios. She coped with this task creatively. When she wanted to understand how a troubled loan-monitoring system worked, she investigated loan ads on roadside billboards and on the Internet. She joined the communities of fraudulent loan providers posing as a student in need of a loan. Through the conversations she gained confidence in, she followed the process through to the end. This allowed her to understand the cycle of fraudulent behaviour, which helped her develop a better anti-fraud system.
After fighting scammers in the world of Web2 and cryptocurrencies for several years, a friend directed her to an opportunity to work with Binance, which provided the opportunity to join the big fight for the safety of users' funds in the cryptocurrency space.
At Binance, the risk team's goal was simple: to prevent - or at least limit - the loss of user assets as quickly as possible to protect all users. In the popular sectors and companies I used to work in, there was an unspoken rule of “don't cut assets too quickly” to protect the team's key objectives and results in the long term. But Binance differed in this regard, which is in line with the core values espoused by Yuri.
With Yuri entering a new field and operating a new system, she was excited and ready to roll up her sleeves and passionately immerse herself in performing the tasks assigned to her.
Protect users
Fraud is not more common in the cryptocurrency space than in traditional finance, but it can cause problems and at the same time provide additional opportunities for crime fighters. Transactions on blockchains are transparent but irreversible, and fraud can easily span multiple jurisdictions at once. There is also a fundamental philosophical debate in this regard, which is: in the case of centralized cryptocurrency platforms based on decentralization principles, what are the limits of permissible preventive intervention?
Yuri provided an example: Binance, as an exchange, does not have the right to freeze a legitimate user's account, and can only advise and alert the victim if they insist on transferring funds to the scammer outside of Binance. This drives Yuri and her colleagues to study user psychology and constantly hone their communication skills to gain users' trust in the evaluation of the risk system and help reduce the probability of financial loss when identifying risks.
In recent years, Binance has invested a lot of resources in compliance and risk controls, and has been constantly building its anti-fraud capabilities, both in terms of platform security and user education. This also includes collaborating with law enforcement agencies around the world on fraud prevention and community education activities, such as the Fraud Detection Project.
Outside of work, Yuri has been a content creator for several years, publishing anti-fraud educational articles to help users navigate the world of digital finance more safely.
The poet mother
Over the years, Yuri has written about a hundred articles on various platforms without revealing her identity. She shared not only anti-fraud educational articles, but also poetry.
There's a rare emotional touch to it for someone who usually relies on logic and rationality. But poetry has been Yuri's emotional outlet since her childhood; Through it, she recorded many of the moments she experienced, such as her weakness during pregnancy, her longing for her hometown, her love for cats, and the secrets she shared with her daughter.
Yuri currently lives in Bahrain with her four-year-old daughter. She says that her motherhood has given her the opportunity to understand and empathize with others on a deeper level, enabling her to see the lives of the victims in every scam and making her always want to help them.
Yuri says the work can be difficult, but she feels she is constantly recovering thanks to her passion for what she does and her loving child. One day she felt very tired and joked that she wanted to be a rock in her next life. A few weeks later, her daughter ran to her and said that in her next life she no longer wanted to be a human being. Yuri did not immediately understand her daughter's meaning, and her daughter continued, "I will be a little flower accompanying the rock, you."