Welcome to The Fraud Practice’s FraudBlog; your source for updates on current events, commentary and best practices related to the eCommerce CNP payments and fraud industry.
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The state of Arkansas shut down their unemployment application website which exposed the PII of nearly 30,000 applicants and Illinois faced a similar issue. Meanwhile, the U.S. Secret Service reports that hundreds of mules are being used to funnel unemployment benefits to an organized fraud ring in Nigeria falsely filing for benefits with stolen identity information.
One of the most common reasons organizations fail to realize significant improvements in risk management after implementing custom modeling solutions can be described with one phrase: Junk in. Junk out. This article discusses best practices as it relates to data management and other factors that are shown to improve performance when it comes to custom modeling and machine learning or artificial intelligence.
It’s not just breadth of data, but also quality of data, that is important. One of the biggest misconceptions about machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) is that you can just flip a switch and let the technology work its magic.
Fraudulent insurance claims are responsible for more than $80 billion in losses per year in the United States, leading to higher premiums for all policy holders. It is estimated that card issuers will lose $1.3 billion this year from cards issued to synthetic identities. Total fraud losses from synthetic identities receiving loans and credit cards are estimated at $6 billion annually. Lenders, issuers and insurance carriers are increasingly combating fraudulent applications and claims with custom modeling solutions and AI.
Checking pay stubs to verify income is no longer sufficient. Completing an application with their authentic identity, a consumer can easily fabricate paycheck stubs or purchase them online for less than ten dollars. When fraudsters create synthetic identities to take out an uncollateralized loan with no intention of paying it back, they can just easily create or buy fake pay stubs to corroborate their synthesized existence.
While there is value in leveraging Artificial Intelligence for modeling and analytics to detect cyber threats and fraud, security professionals are still more likely to indicate that a human touch is more valuable. A recent survey found that half of organizations are making use AI or machine learning but 60 percent put more trust in findings verified by humans. Meanwhile, changing consumer patterns and the rush to work from home in response to the pandemic has likely led to higher rates of false positives.
This isn’t to say AI and ML are not important – they are. In the same survey, 65% said these tools allow them to focus more on preventing cyber attacks than before and 40% reported feeling less stress.
While fraudsters are leveraging the pandemic crisis to commit more fraud, the increase in volumes, shipping delays and struggle to manage certain inventory is creating a unique set of problems. If not managed properly, merchants will see an increase in preventable, non-fraud related chargebacks and disputes. Here’s what merchants can do:
Many merchants both within and outside of Europe are concerned with meeting Strong Consumer Authentication (SCA) requirements and how this might impact sales when nearly every eCommerce order over €30 will require two-factor authentication. A lesser known fact is that this order value threshold for requiring SCA increases in multiple tiers based on the fraud rates of both the acquiring and card issuing banks facilitating the transaction, suddenly making the fraud rates of a merchant’s European processors much more important.
Keeping unwanted parties out of business meetings can range from important to imperative depending on the topics and focus of the video call. There has been a sudden increase in employees working from home and requiring the use of Zoom or other services. While many media reports have discussed the threat of “Zoombombing,” there are several measures video chat users can take to greatly reduce these occurrences and their impacts.
Here are steps anyone can take to reduce the likelihood of falling victim to e-meeting eavesdropping in Zoom.
While it is commonly accepted that passwords and the consumers who set them are inherently insecure, organizations put a lot of trust behind two-factor authentication (2FA) solutions. Here are several ways fraudsters have been able to beat this additional layer of security.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently suggested that milestones related to ensuring Strong Consumer Authentication (SCA) compliance by March 31, 2021 may need to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has maintained their December 31, 2020 deadline but will continue to monitor the events and reassess.
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