Hiding In Plain Sight
As consumer buying habits change and move more on-line, it provides an ever increasing opportunity for fraudsters. With the increased volumes of transactions associated with Covid 19, it has been easier for fraudsters to hide in plain sight. The value of the average fraudulent transaction was up 70% in the 4th quarter of 2020, compared to a year ago. It’s not only the dollar amount of fraud that’s increasing, but how it’s happening. A combination of increasing value of attacks, the attacking of more channels, and a turn down in volume makes it more difficult to find the perpetrators. So, how are they doing it? Most of the fraud consisted of bad actors using fake identities to commit new account fraud and account takeover fraud. Account takeover fraud matters. Customers hold merchants responsible for accounts compromised and hesitate to do business with them in the future. However, in the same breath, they expect frictionless transactions. Merchants will need to rethink protecting against fraud throughout the entire customer journey. It could be worth spending more time in validating customers before a transaction. This gives a merchant more time to analyze fraud, compared to the split second decision making needed at checkout. Fraudsters are there, they are hoping you won’t notice. Take care to protect your business everywhere you can.