An excellent way to improve one’s level of security intelligence is to follow the writings of Robert X. Cringley, one of my favorite technology know-it-alls.

Anyway, Cringley’s credit card was recently hacked. And if his card can be hacked, anyone’s can. Like many cardholders, Cringley received a notification from his credit card company’s fraud department, informing him that his card data was being used overseas, on an online dating website.

A scammer used Cringley’s credit card number to create a fake profile, posing as a woman named Katya to lure desperate, unsuspecting men into dating scams. (more…)

I’m very proud to announce that iovation was recently positioned in the Visionary Quadrant of Gartner’s 2011 Magic Quadrant for the Web Fraud Detection. For a security provider who’s been helping customers across many industries prevent online fraud since 2004, we are pleased to receive this position in the analyst firm’s annual report.

The Visionary section of the Magic Quadrant recognizes security vendors whose products are easy to implement and have successfully reduced online fraud for their customers.   (more…)

I couldn’t be more thrilled upon learning about iovation being named as a finalist for the 2011 Red Herring Top 100 North American Award. It’s a real honor to be in the company of North America’s best high technology innovators, who are making significant impacts in the respective markets they serve.

Being recognized as a finalist for this prestigious award, which looks at technological innovation, financial performance, execution of strategy and management strength of private technology ventures, is a testament to our continued success in protecting the world’s largest brands from online fraud and abuse like credit card fraud, account takeover, chargebacks, money laundering and identity theft, to name a few.
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iovation’s Director of Product Management, Andy Mallinger, will be presenting top methods for detecting high risk transactions at the CUTech Spring Forum this Wednesday, May 11th.

CUTech is a credit union technology and research company that brings new technologies and value-added services to the nation’s most progressive credit unions to strengthen their position within the financial services industry.

Financial services is a very important sector for iovation as it has protected over 5 billion transactions worldwide from fraud such as identity theft, credit card fraud, ACH or debit fraud, account takeovers and credit application fraud. As with other financial services customers, credit unions can leverage iovation’s fraud detection service to assess risk in real-time by checking the reputation of the device (computer, tablet or smartphone) being used to interact with the credit union’s website. (more…)

1. Data Breaches: Businesses suffer most often from data breaches, making up 35% of total breaches. Medical and healthcare services are also frequent targets, accounting for 29.1% of breaches. Government and military make up 16.2%, banking, credit, and financial services account for 10.5%, and 9.2% of breaches occur in educational institutes.

Even if you protect your PC and keep your critical security patches and antivirus definitions updated, there is always the possibility that your bank or credit card company may be hacked, and your sensitive data sold for the purposes of identity theft.

2. Social Engineering: This is the act of manipulating people into taking certain actions or disclosing sensitive information. It’s essentially a fancier, more technical form of lying.

At 2010’s Defcon, a game was played in which contestants used the telephone to convince company employees to voluntarily cough up information they probably shouldn’t have. Of 135 “targets” of the social engineering “game,” 130 blurted out sensitive information. All five holdouts were women who gave up zero data to the social engineers. (more…)

iovation is very excited to participate in the ETA Annual Meeting and Expo, held at the San Diego Convention Center next week. If you are planning to attend, please stop by iovation’s booth #1205 and get your Virtual Crime Fighter t-shirt and hear how we protect financial services businesses from credit card fraud, credit application fraud, account takeovers and other abuses.

ETA will be filled with the latest products and services related to every element of the electronic payments industry, plus all of the major players from around the world including ISOs, processors, financial institutions, value-added resellers and security/encryption services.

Keynotes will be delivered by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer and Senator Christopher Dodd. Senator Dodd is best known in the electronic payments industry as the former chair of the Senate Banking Committee and, along with Rep. Barney Frank, the principal author of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the law which was the vehicle for the Durbin amendment on debit card fees and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He also helped write the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which strengthened accounting and management standards for publicly held companies. (more…)

Cyberspace has become as essential to the function of daily modern life as we know it, as blood is to the function of our bodies. And I don’t believe that’s an overstatement. If the Internet suddenly vanished, there would be deaths as a result.

Our dependency on the Internet has long since passed the point of turning back, and I think we’ve made a mistake in that approach. Fortunately, it’s extremely unlikely that the Internet will go down entirely.

The U.S. and most other developed countries are thoroughly electrically and digitally dependent. Critical infrastructures, including drinking water, sewer systems, phone lines, banks, air traffic, and government systems, all depend on the electric grid. After a major successful attack, we’d be back to the dark ages in an instant. No electricity, no computers, no gasoline, no refrigeration, no clean water. Think about what happens when the power goes out for a few hours. We’re stymied. (more…)

Every day iovation assesses risk on more than 7.5 million transactions for the online customers that we protect around the globe. France ranks third by country, just behind the United States and United Kingdom, in the total volume of Internet traffic from any country that we protect. As you would imagine, France is a very important market for us. It is growing and as we continue to expand our international footprint, France will play a vital and strategic part in our growth.

As part of our effort to expand our device identification, device reputation and real-time risk mitigation services for online businesses in France, I am pleased to announce that Philippe Mazurier has joined iovation as Country Manager, heading up sales and business development and is based in Montpellier.

Philippe brings strong business relationships and deep, in-market experience that will be instrumental in helping us meet online fraud protection demands in this market. He understands the serious and damaging impacts that cybercrime has on online businesses.

As we continue to serve the French market, protecting e-commerce, financial services, gaming and online communities from fraud and abuse, having a seasoned veteran in authentication and fraud prevention services representing iovation will help us serve this market even better.

To arrange meetings with Philippe to talk about any fraud or abuse issues your company is experiencing, please email france@iovation.com or call +33 (0)6 69 79 12 33.

As we all know, the Internet has done wonders for many businesses and for the global economy as a whole. Unfortunately, the same technology that revolutionized the way we communicate with each other has also created a fertile environment for inventive criminals.

Online crimes like credit card fraud and identity theft continue to cost businesses and individuals billions of dollars each year, and President Obama has now rattled his sabres about making it a top priority to fight cybercrime. In a recent International Business Times article, “Obama: Online Fraud Costs The Average Victim 130 Hours, $631,” we find that the Obama administration’s National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) aims at developing a program to ensure the safety and security of transactions over the Internet. (more…)

It’s a trend that has stood the test of time. Whenever something is a hit with consumers, everybody wants a piece of it. The same is true for cyber criminals, who are basically opportunists that operate on the wrong side of the law. Every time a new technology or social networking service hits a cord with the mainstream, hackers aren’t far behind.

While we know fraudsters can’t resist a sure thing, Craig Scroggie, vice president and managing director of Symantec in the Pacific region, said most of the time consumers turn a deaf ear to such warnings until it is too late. In the article, “Cybercrime to hit tablets,” Scroggie, who has warned consumers about potential threats to email, fake websites and computers in the past, is at it again. This time he says the proliferation of smartphones and tablet devices will soon face the same type of attacks PC owners have long suffered. (more…)

With fraud more pervasive than ever, one would think organizations and their financial institutions are taking every precaution to prevent malicious activities like corporate account takeover and fraud. But a recent study found that over the past year, there has been little to no improvement in small and medium-sized businesses’ ability to prevent fraudsters from stealing money from small business accounts that have been compromised.

In the article, “Independent Study Reveals Corporate Account Takeover Fraud Continues to Plague SMBs and Banks,” the 2011 Business Banking Trust Study found that SMBs have struggled to make progress in stopping payments fraud as 56% of businesses said they had experienced fraud within the last 12 months. While 61% said they were victimized more than once over that period, 75% of businesses participating in the study said they experienced online account takeover and/or online fraud.

With mobile banking growth rates on the rise, these findings are alarming to Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, which commissioned the study. With 38% of respondents saying they access their company’s banking accounts from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs compared to 23% in 2010, Ponemon doesn’t anticipate things turning around for SMBs anytime soon.. (more…)

As an online fraud prevention company, our goal at iovation is simple: To protect our clients from harmful online activity that can negatively impact their business and customers. Improving our clients’ businesses by greatly reducing fraud and abuse rates is the ultimate reward. Being recognized by our peers is just icing on the cake. This week, we were proud to announce that we had our cake and ate it, too.

On Monday, we were named by AlwaysOn and industry experts as one of the 2011 OnDemand Top 100 winners, which recognizes leadership and game-changing approaches and technologies likely to disrupt existing markets and entrenched players. iovation was chosen for our unique ability to detect online fraudulent activity in real-time and keep our clients’ businesses and customers safe. (more…)

As Internet advancements change the competitive landscapes of industries across the globe, fraud prevention mechanisms are essential to filter online payments and flag or stop suspicious transactions.

According to the article, “Securing Internet Payments,” 70% of all fraudulent credit card transactions originate from card-not-present (CNP) transactions. This has a substantial impact on the public’s confidence using their credit card for online transactions. Lacking the capability to prevent unauthorized transactions and associated fraud and abuse ultimately trickles down to Internet-based businesses’ bottom line revenues and profits. (more…)

When it comes to building and maintaining a strong online reputation, organizations know that perception is reality. That’s why many Internet-based companies are proactively taking additional security measures to ensure the safety of their customers and websites. It’s a key strategy for preserving a safe and reputable brand reputation.

But what happens when industry perception is beyond your control? Can online businesses protect themselves from consumer perceptions of the industry as a whole? And what kind of impact can consumers’ fears of shopping online have on online merchants? (more…)

Fraud prevention requires layers of defense. Mature fraud organizations often have several layers that interrogate the transaction details such as name, address, and credit card details, device reputation that starts with device identification, and risk scoring on rules developed over time to detect fraud attempts as well as predict new types of attacks.

In order for the business rules engines to be productive, the rules they operate on need to reflect the particular risks the organization faces. When it comes to customizing business rules, this is not a “one size fits all” model. Giving a retailer, financial institution, or gaming company the ability to easily create and manage rules that are run against their transactions requires a tool that makes it simple to see, add, edit, and experiment with rules.

The iovation business rules editor provides great flexibility in managing the set of rules to be reviewed for transactions such as login, account creation, account change, and checkout. Rule sets are the collections of rules for each end-customer touch point. Rules can be added with a familiar drag-and-drop, enabled and disabled with one click, parameters can be adjusted, and lists of common items can be managed and included. An example of a list is a ‘risky ISP list’, where the user can create a list of risky ISPs and use that same list in multiple rules. If the list changes, all rules leveraging that list will be immediately updated. New rules can be evaluated without impacting scoring results by giving them a zero weight and tracking how frequently they are triggered.

The iovation rules editor provides additional flexibility to help you keep up with the evolution of fraud while protecting your business.