Online Fraud Complaints Up 33% in 2008

1 Nov
2009

According to a Washington Post Article in April 2009, the FBI has stated that online fraud complaints was up 33% in 2008.

Some 275,284 complaints were filed last year with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. In 2007, the IC3 received 206,844 complaints.

The area of biggest concern, and one we are concerned with at FraudRating, is the delivery of Non-delivery services.

Please review the following chart:

This biggest area of fraud complaints is in the Non-Delivery of services. Our product is targeted at this specific problem. Please get on our contact list to learn more about our product, if you are interested in an anti-fraud solution in this market.

The Red Flags Rule Go Into Effect November 1

23 Oct
2009

This blog entry is the beginning of a series of articles written by members of the FraudRating team about the Red Flag Rules.  In addition to developing a product, we believe that we are going to be a source of education for Businesses, Government and the Education market.  Please take note of these articles, as we explain how and why our product will fit into your Red Flag Rules for your website.

At the FTC website you can read about the Red Flag Rules: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/redflagsrule/faqs.shtm

The FTC has some keys questions about the Red Flag Rules, such as:

A. General Questions About the Red Flags Rule
B. Who’s Covered by the Red Flags Rule?
C. The Red Flags Rule and Government Agencies, Non-Profit Organizations, and Schools
D. Designing Your Identity Theft Prevention Program
E. Red Flags Rule Compliance and Enforcement

The Red Flags Rule (this time around) impact only “financial institutions” and “creditors” according this FTC website. But this is really a hazy type of grouping. What is a creditor? Don’t many companies basically finance the person who buys their service… This would make them a creditor and that is very broad according to this website. That would be the concept of giving out credit, like in a Saas (Software As A Service). So it would be easy to understand The Red Flags Rule eventually being extended to many other industries.

If you look at the guide book here, you will find a list of the The Red Flags Rule and all the reasons why you need to meet these requirements.  Our goal at FraudRating is to try to come up with part of the automation of these rules through our new service, which is about to be released.

This blog is going to have a series of articles about how to use the FraudRating system as part of implementing your The Red Flags Rule.  This software is going to be available for any type of website, including service delivery companies who have a website and physical ecommerce companies who shop products.  If you are working at a government or educational website that registers or sells information or creates some type of transaction, the FraudRating Manager will be the appropriate product for you to try out.

There is a beta test that is just beginning with this product.   Please contact us if you are interested in being a beta tester.

FraudRating Beta Getting Closer

24 Sep
2009

FraudRating, an easy to implement, cost effective anti fraud solution for card not present and other online ecommerce providers is close to being ready to be tested. Please contact us at sales@fraudrating.com if you are interested in signing up for our Beta Test program.

CMO study: Marketers fear increase in brand infection

11 May
2009

In times of a slow economy, marketers see a lot of danger for brand integrity by fakes, frauds and infringements. The Chief Marketing Office (CMO) Council asked in a global audit of 306 marketers, sponsored by MarkMonitor, how marketers view threats to online and offline brand attacks. The results reveal that top marketers see online threats heating up but still struggle to understand, monitor and measure the impact of the increased sophistication of brand hijackers and product knock-offs on consumer trust and confidence. The good point is: they plan to increase spending on brand protection.

The study “Protection From Brand Infection” shows that marketers are reporting a greater number of incidents or fraud online than offline. In terms of chief vulnerability online (29.5%) has surpassed offline (22.6%) already. The brand value, trust, integrity and reputation is being eroded and damaged, reply the study respondents. The main problems companies are fighting grey market knock-offs, phishing attacks, cyber squatting, email scams, trademark abuse, copyright and patent infringements.

Key findings of the Protection from Brand Infection study
- The top six market segments with the highest prevalence of abuse are digital media, luxury goods, software, footwear and apparel and Internet e-commerce (tied), and consumer electronics.

- 30.3% said their company has a specialized brand protection group with another 17% choosing to outsource those efforts with a third party provider or leaving it up to their industry trade organization.

- 27.4% reported they spend less than $100,000 on brand protection annually and the same number reported they have no budget allocations. Another 29.1% report they don’t know. 9.8 percent say they’re spending more than $500,000 while 2.7% say they’re spending more than $5 million.
- The value and integrity of brand assets suffered the greatest impact from counterfeit products, knock-offs or online brand hijackings, with 41.2 percent of marketers rating this highest followed by 35% blaming it for undermining revenue and margins and 26.7 percent saying the activities raised unnecessary customer concerns and anxieties.

 

http://www.thestrategyweb.com/cmo-study-marketers-fear-increase-in-brand-infection

How To Reduce E-Commerce Fraud And Fraud-Related Costs In A Challenging Economy

11 May
2009

Retailers are realizing that the level of e-commerce fraud losses that they have considered “acceptable” in the past is not acceptable at all. That’s especially true in the current economic environment. For many merchants, e-commerce sales are a bright spot right now and they are doing everything possible to maximize online revenues and improve the web shopping experience for consumers. But at the same time, they have to make more efficient use of limited resources. They have to do more with less and eliminate operational costs. They are focused on initiatives that have quick ROI.

 

Online credit card fraud prevention is a critical area to address because they can achieve significant cost reductions almost immediately. It’s about more than just reducing fraud rates ‚Äì it’s about reducing manual review and order rejection rates and increasing analysts’ productivity and accuracy.

 

Several things. First, they are strengthening their defenses by applying more automation and new tools and technologies in their fraud prevention programs. Second, they are moving away from “piecemeal” solutions and taking an integrated, platform-based approach that is quicker to implement and provides results in a matter of weeks. Third, they are empowering their fraud prevention teams to take control of the process. Because criminals are always inventing new scams, merchants have to be fast and nimble at fighting fraud. That means choosing flexible solutions that aren’t dependent on any single anti-fraud technology and that can be easily modified without waiting for help from an IT department. Additionally, they are looking at hosted and outsourced options in order to address capacity, fixed-cost and personnel issues.

http://www.retailsolutionsonline.com/article.mvc/How-To-Reduce-E-Commerce-Fraud-And-0002?VNETCOOKIE=NO

No Magic Bullet To Stop Online Card Fraud

11 May
2009

The Internet revolution has triggered a massive influx of eCommerce transactions — one of the fastest growing segments of transactions today. However, a recent study from Gartner reveals that consumers are changing their online behaviour due to concerns about the safety of their personal data.¬†15% of those surveyed have stopped shopping online altogether, such are their concerns. The biggest fraud-prevention mistake eCommerce merchants usually make is to manually review every single order to look for signs of fraud. We caught up with Dr. Akif Khan, head, client and technical services, CyberSource to know more about online card fraud.

 

http://www.efytimes.com/efytimes/34416/news.htm

Startup Takes New Spin On Online Fraud Detection

11 May
2009

A security startup is preparing to emerge from stealth mode with a new technology that detects in real-time whether an online user or member of a social network is legitimate — and not a bot, automated tool, or criminal performing financial or other online fraud.

 

Pramana, which will officially launch in July, has developed what it calls HumanPresent, a technology spun off from research at Georgia Tech that catches online fraud in action, real-time, using a dynamic method of identifying human behavior anomalies while at the same time preventing the fraudsters from detecting that they’re being watched. “We are looking at real-time behavior, but we never disclose our schemes or strategies…We are observing inputs and collecting data, and we are never fixed on one [approach]. We deploy different collection mechanism strategies on different pages to evade detection, as well as evolve our system with new strategies,” says Sanjay Sehgal, CEO of Pramana, who is keeping the details of the inner workings of HumanPresent close to the vest so as not to tip off the bad guys.

 

HumanPresent doesn’t rely on blacklists of botnet IP addresses, nor does it address bot activity at the network level like other organizations that sell antibotnet products and services do, according to Sehgal. “We are in the abuse and fraud detection and prevention part of the security space, not network security,” he says.

 

In addition, Pramana’s technology doesn’t use device fingerprinting to identify a bot or rogue activity like other online fraud firms, such as Iovation and 41st Parameter. It uses special APIs placed on customers’ Web pages that then communicate back to the HumanPresent server. The tool monitors and validates an entire user session during a transaction, including attempts to fake the CAPTCHA process. HumanPresent alerts the online retailer, financial institution, or social network operator, for example, within 10 milliseconds of finding bot or other online fraud activity.

http://www.darkreading.com/securityservices/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217300733

New module: Anatoa fraud and scam detection

11 May
2009

Univalence Ltd, a London based company established in 2008, is today launching a Drupal module for Anatoa, the new online fraud detection service directed at membership based websites run by individual webmasters as well as small and medium companies.

The service addresses both so-called profile scam and abusive members, both major reasons for membership based websites not reaching their full potential.¬† The typical example of profile scam is the “Nigerian 419 scam”, in which organised fraudsters, often based in West Africa, use promises of large amounts of money to defraud people they contact on the Internet.

Anatoa provides a service for detection and automated detection of these fraudsters, using WebServices technology and ready-made plugins for 20 of the most popular software packages used by websites today. By combining input from all members of the service, new fraudsters are quickly detected and prevented from conducting their activity on all members’ websites. The service is free for most websites, with charging models coming into account for those with a large member base.

Websites that install the module can expect immediate benefits by preventing fraudsters from destroying their growth potential, as well as cleaning up their existing membership database. Once active members, they can display Anatoa’s membership logo on their member sign-up form as a further deterrent.”

http://drupal.org/node/455314

APWG and IEEE Send Out Call For Papers for the Fourth Annual 2009 eCrime Researchers Summit

11 May
2009

The APWG and IEEE are inviting papers and research from electronic crime researchers for the fourth annual eCrime Researchers Summit (eCRS), the world’s only peer-reviewed research conference dedicated to electronic crime research, scheduled to be held in Tacoma, WA on October 20 and 21 this year, in collaboration with the University of Washington, Tacoma.

eCRS Chair Randal Vaughn said, “eCRS, which was founded four years ago by APWG and which marks its second year of IEEE Standards Group technical sponsorship, offers a unique opportunity for those in the academic, commercial, and government communities to collaborate towards improving each other’s abilities to understand and counter the forces behind electronic crime.”

 

Research papers are invited within a wide variety topic spaces joined by the common theme of investigating the criminological aspects of electronic security, including phishing, rogue anti-virus programs, crimeware, click-fraud, botnets, delivery techniques, detection avoidance, user interface design as well as forensic subjects such as electronic evidence handling.

 

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090504006314&newsLang=en

Fingerprinting Protects Privacy in Fighting Online Fraud

11 May
2009

There has been some recent discussion in different articles regarding whether or not device identification, also referred to as device fingerprinting, when used to fight online fraud, constitutes a violation of privacy. The topic came up recently at a panel at RSA on the Benefits and Dangers of Device Fingerprinting. The essence of the discussion is that device fingerprinting provides significant benefits for online businesses in both providing an additional factor for authentication, as is used by many online banks, and is also beneficial for fighting fraud by identifying computers that have been used in the past for fraudulent activities and stopping future transactions from those systems.

 

The reality is that device fingerprinting fraud prevention systems provide some of the only fraud management tools to online businesses that don’t rely heavily on personally identifiable information. Instead of decrying privacy violations, privacy advocates should be looking to embrace systems that achieve the purpose of reducing online fraud while still protecting the privacy of good online users.

http://blog.iovation.com/2009/05/04/device-fingerprinting-protects-privacy-in-fighting-online-fraud/

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