Raising the awareness of fraud and emerging fraud trends is in the best interest of everyone, particularly those who purchase, sell and communicate with others on the Internet. For this year’s Fraud Prevention Month, the annual education and awareness campaign focused on the growing concerns of online fraud.

With total losses to Internet crime topping $599 million in 2009 (the latest annual statistics), educating others about the current state of fraud, evolving fraud tactics, high at-risk groups, and best practices to identify and prevent fraud, plays a critical role in helping consumers and businesses protect themselves from online fraud.

Fraud Prevention Month is also an indicator of how much still needs to be done for businesses to adequately protect themselves and their customers from today’s growing threats. (more…)

Being a sales leader at iovation is an exciting and interesting job. I get to work with companies across a wide spectrum of industries spanning from the traditional, like financial services and retail, to the unique and new – such as gaming, community sites and gambling. On a daily basis, I get to talk with experienced professionals who are focused on a problem that is fundamental to preserving their company’s profitability and viability. One thing I’ve found in these discussions, is that when it comes to stopping fraud and managing risk they have a lot in common. Risk is no longer simply about meeting compliance guidelines, it’s an essential element of online businesses’ strategy.

There is a great recent article in Government Info Security that examines this change titled appropriately, “The Evolution of Risk.” It gives a nice look at the role risk managers play in key strategic decisions and how stopping and analyzing the sources of fraud has been escalated in importance over the past couple of decades. (more…)

iovation is very excited for the Game Developer’s Conference this coming week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

If you’re planning to attend, please stop by booth #611 to tell us about any fraud or abuse issues your business is dealing with.

We’ll share with how iovation’s device identification, device reputation and real-time risk reporting service enables gaming businesses to service their customers more effectively by managing fraud and abuse. We help Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Virtual Worlds keep their players safe and mitigate risk such as chargebacks, code hacking, gold farming, account takeovers, policy violations, chat abuse and virtual asset theft.

iovation protects online gaming sites while protecting the identity and privacy of their players. We stop over 150,000 online fraudulent activities every single day. Most anti-fraud solutions fight fraud by looking at identity information or financial data, but our approach is completely different. We focus on the physical device (computer, tablet or mobile phone) that the player is using to connect to the online game or virtual world. (more…)

A recent Norton study estimates that cybercrime will cost Britain £1.9 billion in 2011. That’s an average cost of £103 per victim of online crimes. This information is based on the security firm’s new Cybercrime Index, which displays online threat levels in various countries.

By taking data collected from 113 million servers globally that track cyber attacks like identity theft, phishing threats and fraud activity, the Cybercrime Index is a website that acts like a stock index, informing Internet users about the day’s biggest online threats. (more…)

With today’s cyber criminals more financially motivated, organizations need ways to better protect sensitive areas of their websites that process electronic payments. To handle the volumes and high availability requirements of demanding financial institutions, iovation has partnered with Affirmative Technologies, which provides a suite of Automated Clearing House (ACH) services and other risk management and verification solutions to its financial clients.

Through this partnership, Affirmative Technologies will offer customers iovation’s ReputationManager 360, which combines customizable business rules, risk profiles, and the shared experiences of more than 2,000 fraud analysts from leading brands worldwide, as a strategic component of its risk platform. By combining Affirmative Technologies expertise in electronic payments with our risk assessment and global device reputation solution, companies get an extra layer of security to authenticate users before they enter their secure websites. (more…)

I’m extremely happy to announce our new partnership with Besedo, the Swedish-based business process outsourcing company that offers content moderation, safety and customer retention. Through this partnership, Besedo will extend iovation’s advanced fraud and abuse prevention services to its customers in online classifieds, auctions, social networks, online dating and gaming websites.

As expanding businesses combat an array of online crimes such as credit card fraud, phishing, forgery and money laundering, our customers’ collective experiences are reported and shared in our database of over half a billion unique device reputations, which include computers, tablets and mobile phones. (more…)

I’m really looking forward to the upcoming Dominican Republic Caribbean Gaming Show and Conference in Santo Domingo. As one of the presenters on the online gaming panel, I will examine strategies for identifying high-risk transactions that help sportsbooks and online casinos prevent fraudulent activities like financial fraud, money laundering, fraudulent deposits, player collusion, bonus abuse and account takeover.

Last year more than 60 of iovation’s online betting, poker, sportsbook and casino customers reported and shared 350,000 fraud and abuse attempts through the ReputationManager 360 device reputation service, including the likes of William Hill, Entraction and WagerWorks. These experiences are shared along with our knowledge base of more than 500 million unique devices (computers, tablets and mobile phones) which online gaming sites leverage to gain insight into suspicious activity to prevent fraud before it happens. (more…)

For romantics across the globe, love is in the air this Valentine’s Day. But like love itself, it’s also a time to be cautious when seeking romance online. In the article, “Be fraud safe this Valentines — top tips to avoid online dating fraud,” the Action Fraud report found that over the past six months approximately £2.5 million was stolen by online dating fraudsters.

Dr. Bernard Herdan, CEO of the National Fraud authority who runs Action Fraud, said fraudsters who take advantage of online dating sites are a particularly sinister bunch, who use clever tricks to gain the confidence and affections of legitimate site users before asking for money. He warned that nobody should ever send money to someone they’ve never met in person. (more…)

When it comes to helping online businesses fight fraud and abuse, iovation is in a league of its own.

After being recognized by the international gaming and online dating communities in January as one of the top technologies for preventing fraud and increasing profitability, productivity and efficiency, we are extremely proud and honored to be recognized by industry leaders in e-Commerce as one of the most innovative fraud fighting tools for online or multi-channel retailers.

To be eligible for the awards, all entrants must be available for online or multi-channel retailers to use for the purpose of measuring, monitoring or mitigating one or more of the following: card-not-present fraud; advancing online data security; improving online payment processes; and advancing the MRC’s vision of making electronic commerce more efficient, safe and profitable.

This week, the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) announced that iovation ReputationManager 360 has been named a finalist for the 2011 MRC Emerging Technology Awards (also known as the METAwards). The awards are judged by a panel of merchants that include the likes of eBay, BestBuy.com, Go Daddy, HP, Microsoft, NCsoft, Tiffany & Co., Urban Outfitters, T-Mobile, among others. (more…)

We’ve recently learned that iovation ReputationManager 360 has been selected by the Info Security Products Guide as a finalist for this year’s Global Excellence Awards. Our fraud prevention service, which combines device identification, device reputation and real-time device risk reporting to prevent card-not-present (CNP) fraud and other online abuses, has been recognized in the categories of Risk Management and Best Security Service.

While this and the other accolades we’ve received lately have been nothing short of overwhelming, we are extremely proud of being recognized by industry leaders and associations across multiple industries. Because we serve online retail, gaming, social community and financial services companies, the acknowledgements have been a testament to iovation’s ongoing commitment to make the Internet a safer place to interact and conduct business, as well as reinforces the positive impact we make in the everyday lives of our customers by protecting their online transactions to reduce fraud rates.

The 2011 Global Excellence Awards will be announced at an awards gala, February 16th, in San Francisco.

When it comes to fighting fraud, 2010 was an eye-opener for many financial institutions, who more often than not learned about fraud incidents against their organizations the worst way possible — from their customers.

A recent survey conducted by the Information Security Media Group, “The Faces of Fraud: Fighting Back,” found that despite all the anti-fraud technologies banks have put in place to detect criminal activity, more than three-quarters (76%) of fraud incidents are detected by none other than their own customers. Other fraud detection points included:

48% – At the point of transaction
41% – Third-party notification
26% – At the point of origination
23% – During account audit/reconciliation

The survey also found credit/debit card fraud outpaced all other fraud types experienced by financial institutions in 2010, including:

82% – Credit/debit card 6
3% – Check 48% – Phishing/vishing
37% – ACH/wire (account takeover)
32% – Third-party POS skimming

(more…)

They sell a variety of goods and services online. Offer a seller’s commission and volume discounts. Need project work? They’ve got that, too. It all sounds like any run-of-the-mill online business, right? While this website may operate like any other business, PandaLabs research has found that black market websites are anything but legitimate online businesses, illegally profiting from stolen financial information and other services aimed at defrauding businesses and consumers alike.

In the article, “Report: Stolen data sold over online black market,” the security firm revealed that cyber criminals have set up shop online to buy and sell everything from stolen bank account information, credit card numbers and passwords to consulting and technical services around developing and operating fake online stores. (more…)

We’re pleased to announce that iovation has been named a finalist at the International Gaming Awards (IGA) for 2011 Technology Provider of the Year.

iovation has been providing fraud prevention and anti-money laundering services to the gaming industry for the past 6 years.

In 2010 alone, iovation screened nearly 2 billion transactions and stopped over 35 online fraud attempts. The IGA has recognized iovation’s fraud prevention service for the strong results it has provided to gaming operators such as William Hill, Entraction and WagerWorks. The IGA technology provider award recognizes innovative services that have helped gaming operators increase their profitability, productivity and efficiency. (more…)

With travel fraud complaints on the rise, we have partnered with TWS, a technology solution broker for the travel and leisure industry, to help their network of online booking and travel business customers prevent fraud and operate more efficiently.

As the travel and leisure industry continues to fight various consumer scams, having the right fraud prevention tools in place is essential to stopping criminal activity that directly impacts businesses and consumers. This partnership complements TWS’s continued commitment to help their online merchants boost profits and operate more effectively. (more…)

In a year filled with evolving, hard-to-detect online fraud tactics, security professionals everywhere had their work cut out for them as they matched wits with tech-savvy cyber criminals. Throughout 2010, our goal for this blog has been to educate you about the latest trends in fraud techniques, and how iovation helps online companies successfully protect their business and customers. From understanding new ways fraudsters exploit network vulnerabilities to the importance of combining effective anti-fraud defenses to protect the integrity of your systems, I’ve compiled my Top 5 iovation blogs for 2010:

1. Combining Device ID with Velocity-based Rules Packs a Powerful Punch Against Online Fraud
Velocity-based rules have long been used by merchants to identify potentially fraudulent online behavior. Unfortunately, velocity checks alone are of limited value against sophisticated fraudsters who know how to assemble multiple accounts to look completely different. Combining device identification with velocity-based rules provides a powerful one-two punch for identifying suspicious activities and stopping fraud that operates under the radar of many fraud detection systems. (more…)