As we head into the new year, BioCatch’s Chief Cyber Officer, Uri Rivner, has looked into his crystal ball once again for our annual cybercrime and fraud predictions blog. In 2019, Uri’s predictions proved to be incredibly prescient. You can review Uri’s 2019 predictions here.
Gear up. The 2019 holiday shopping season is upon us, and with it a sharp increase in online fraud. According to Arkose Labs, fraud increased by 30% in Q3 2019, a preliminary of what’s to come as criminals test stolen credentials to pave the way to successful scamming.
Social engineering is one of the largest threats to an organization’s cybersecurity — and scammers are only getting more clever and sophisticated in their attack methods. According to Proofpoint, in the third quarter of 2019, URL-based email threats comprised 88% of overall malicious messages. And although email remains a top method of attack, phone-based social engineering scams are among the fastest growing types of threats.In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission reported that 77% of its fraud complaints involve contacts by telephone, of which social engineering is a subset.
New account fraud is one of the largest and most dangerous threats that businesses face when processing transactions online. According to an analyst from Javelin Strategy & Research, it’s the “most expensive form of identity fraud for businesses and consumers alike.”
In 2018 alone, new account fraud caused $3.4 billion in losses, an increase over previous years. The steady leak of personally identifiable information (PII) is largely responsible for the upward trend. The amount of PII exposed in data breaches — such as social security numbers, emails, addresses, phone numbers and device and network attribute — grew by 126 percent between 2017-2018. Hackers use the information to forge stolen identities and open fraudulent new accounts.
Why is new account fraud spiraling out of control? Because you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
Out with the Old
Traditional methods for fraud detection and the safeguarding of digital identities are outdated and lacking. Advanced fraudsters are constantly finding new ways to steal identities or create synthetic ones, handedly sliding past these systems of defense.
Today’s detection tools also cause friction in the account opening process. And as any organization knows, friction is the number one reason customers will walk away from doing business with your brand. Online transactions should be seamless, not full of frustrating roadblocks to opening an account.
In with the New
The missing piece to the puzzle is behavioral biometrics. Powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, behavioral biometrics works behind the scenes to monitor a user’s online behavior. By analyzing thousands of behavioral patterns specific to how a user acts during an online session, the technology can verify that the individual opening an online account is legitimate, and not a fraudster. Users are kept secure without having to take additional steps. It’s a seamless process.
In this infographic, we highlight the most alarming new account fraud trends and statistics, explain why traditional fraud detection methods fall short and examine how BioCatch’s behavioral biometrics technology closes the gaps.
In our first blog on Money20/20 USA , I reviewed the key messages and challenges presented in Las Vegas and explained key risks to digital identity. These risks that must be solved to enable the future of money are the security challenges surrounding digital transformation and the rise of the synthetic identity problem. My question for today is: What can service providers, vendors and financial institutions do about it? Three key themes were consistent across several sessions I attended.
I’ve attended many security conferences over the course of my career in cybersecurity, but this was my first time at Money20/20 USA. I had to blink a few times when I stepped onto the show’s Expo floor. Did I take the wrong flight and end up at a security conference — or, to be more specific, an Identity conference?
