W
With so much security awareness,
along with new regulations like GDPR
and the California Consumer Privacy
Act, it’s clear that the digital landscape
is changing. Problem is, despite new
rules, regulations and a higher level of
awareness, fraudulent activity remains
a growing challenge. The issue is so
pervasive that out of 400 billion events
monitored worldwide by NuData, 28%
were high-risk fraudulent activity,
according to information from NuData
Security’s 2018 fraud trends datasheet. New account fraud and risk
The same datasheet shows that
the volume of fraudulent activity is
actually increasing by emulating
the way consumers interact with an
organisation’s pages. To put it
simply, bad actors mask themselves
alongside a company’s good traffic,
rendering it more difficult to identify
a potential threat. New credit lines with instant approval
are also a major target that quickly add
up to unbearable losses. According to
NuData’s report, in 2018 alone it took
more than 53 million hours to clean up
the mess of new account fraud.
Given these findings, it’s more
important than ever before that
companies of all sizes and across
all industries not only practice better
security awareness but also put it into
action by adopting and implementing
improved policies and tools.
Mobile mayhem
As companies scramble to get up to
speed with bad actors’ ever-evolving
tactics, it’s important to note that not
all fraud is created equal. NuData’s
2018 fraud trends during a webinar
highlighted that distribution between
mobile and desktop is vastly askew
with mobile seeing 78% of traffic, while
desktop had just 22%.
This is important to mention because
mobile malware is a major threat to
businesses across various industries,
especially those in e-commerce and
banking. Kaspersky Lab indicated that
the number of attacks using malicious
mobile software nearly doubled in 2018
over the previous year.
Ryan Wilk, Vice President at NuData
Security, a Mastercard company
www.intelligentciso.com
|
Issue 13
FEATURE
Magecart, for example, has already
wreaked havoc on several notable
e-commerce companies including British
Airways, Newegg and Feedify, among
others, and is still going strong in 2019.
There’s a lot of abuse in the merchant
world but one of the things that’s high
on that list involves trial fraud (think free-
trials or coupons for signing up or being
a loyal member).
Bad actors will use credentials to create
new accounts and will sell these free
trials for a minor pay-out. Over time,
however, these ‘free’ sales can add up to
hefty amounts.
Defending your systems
This might seem like a no-brainer but
having great tools is an absolute must.
Even the most skilled security teams
need equally smart equipment. The
Maintaining tools
that increase
visibility into the
attacks assists in
showing red flags.
bottom line here is that every business
needs functionality that allows its
security protocols to evolve with the bad
actors’ techniques.
Behavioural biometrics plays a key role
in this area by allowing organisations
to better understand where threats are
coming from. This reinforces real-time
risk mitigation behind the scenes. By
continually monitoring activity with
these tools, security teams can actually
see where threats are coming from
and be prepared for an attack when
it does happen. Maintaining tools that
increase visibility into the attacks assists
in showing red flags. For instance,
49