We all know cold remedies are made to treat the symptoms, not kill the virus. In a way, reactive anti-fraud solutions work the same way. They’re good at cleaning up the mess or correcting the problem once fraud has occurred, but have difficulty preventing cyber crimes from happening in the first place, or worse, stopping them from reoccurring over and over again.

The truth is, even diligent businesses running the latest security software remain vulnerable to the growing number of new and unknown forms of online fraud and abuse. Take it from Mark Patterson, co-owner of PATCO Construction Inc: when it comes to fighting ACH fraud the new FFIEC authentication guidance falls short. He says that until banks become legally liable and accountable for such online crimes, businesses will remain susceptible to online fraud.

In the BankInfoSecurity article, “Fraud: The Victim’s Perspective,” Patterson, whose small residential and commercial construction company lost over $550,000 to fraudulent ACH transactions, said that while he’s glad updates have been made to the security guidelines, they don’t go far enough. In order for small businesses to protect themselves from online crimes like ACH fraud and account takeover, they need to take it upon themselves to also incorporate their own internal policies and processes to detect fraud and abuse. Some of his recommendations include:

• Talk to your bank about the ACH fraud policy to understand if fraud losses are covered
• Monitor all online transactions for bad IP addresses, anomalies, and suspicious activity
• Run and analyze reports to recognize patterns and velocities
• Educate yourself about online threats and how bad they really are

(more…)

Helping online businesses effectively and efficiently fight online fraud and abuse is our No. 1 goal here at iovation. And according to the team at Red Herring, we have performed exceptionally. For our work in stopping more than 50 million online fraud attempts for our customers this year, we are proud to announce that iovation’s fraud prevention service has been named a finalist for the 2011 Red Herring 100 Global Award.

For the 2011 Global Award, the Red Herring editorial team selected companies demonstrating the most innovative technologies and business models originating from over 1,000 companies from over 40 nations. The companies are judged on a range of qualitative and quantitative metrics, including technology innovation, financial performance, growth criterion, management’s execution standards, potential globalization of the strategy and market share improvement.

The 2011 Global finalists will be featured during the Red Herring event taking place at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza on December 5-7, 2012. iovation’s CEO, Greg Pierson, will be presenting iovation’s winning strategy on Tuesday, December 6th and on the last night of the event, the Global winner will be announced. If you are attending the event and would like to schedule time to chat with Greg Pierson, please email info@iovation.com.

Every online user, including fraudsters, were granted a free pass by the Justice Department earlier this week for lying on the Internet. Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “How can we prosecute somebody for lying?” Fibbing is an age-old human behavior that even the DoJ says it doesn’t have the time or resources to bring cases against everyone who lies on dating websites.

According to the Politico article, “Free pass for dating site liars,” people can take comfort in knowing that they don’t have to worry about being prosecuted or hauled off to jail for telling a little white lie over the Internet. While this certainly makes sense, at the same time we’re still walking on shaky ground when it comes to online lies, falsifications, profile misinterpretations, or whatever you want to label it. The fact is, when it comes to identity fraud, fake accounts or other crimes on romance sites, lying is typically the basis for the crime. It sets the stage for deeper criminal activity that can cost victims both emotional and financial hardships, not to mention damage to the dating site’s reputation.  (more…)

While the term “online abuse” often conjures up thoughts of cyber bullying, predatory behavior and customer harassment, Internet-based businesses that experience abusive activity within their social communities have to immediately address customer trust and confidence issues. Otherwise, they risk unwanted conduct between subscribers, which can ultimately lead to financial implications for the organization.

We all know that the top priority for any IT fraud team is to ensure their good customers can safely and easily communicate and do business within their online environment. However, because many business websites have networking communities that bring likeminded individuals together to socialize, the potential for users or criminals to act inappropriately towards others can create problems that can impact the user experience. (more…)

Understanding the evolving fraud threats that financial services organizations face today is crucial to preventing the damaging affects that credit application fraud, account takeovers and identity theft can have on their business, customers and bottom line.

To help European financial services leaders understand how to thwart these increasing risks, iovation is scheduling one-on-one meetings with Europe’s major financial institutions at the upcoming Financial Services Technology (FST) Summit, October 4-6, in Lisbon, Portugal. If you are interested in learning about the latest online fraud trends and best practices for fraud prevention in retail banking and commercial banking, please reserve some time for us to talk.

As the world’s leading provider of fraud preventative device reputation services, iovation helps businesses assess online transaction risks before they happen. Our active partnerships with leading credit issuers, foreign exchange service providers and banking clients around the globe are designed to stop account takeovers, ID theft, ACH or debit fraud, credit application fraud and more. (more…)

The requirements for making any top business list is revenue growth. The prestigious Inc. 500/5000 is no different. This list considers the percentage of revenue growth over the previous three years to rank the fastest growing private companies in America.

Once again, iovation is proud to be named to Inc. magazine’s 5th annual 500/5000.

Much of our growth in terms of revenue and the size of our fraud-fighting network has been with online banks and credit card issuers. The number of device reputation queries performed by our fraud protection service has grown 938% since 2007, while the number of devices managed in our global device reputation database has increased 2,492% over the same period, reaching more than half a billion devices worldwide.

In the Inc. 5000 ranking, we are the 45th fastest-growing private company in the Portland, Ore. region, and 62nd in U.S. security companies.

As online businesses continue to build safer environments that detect and stop evolving forms of fraud and abuse, our B2B SaaS solution exposes the reputations of all types of Internet-connected devices (desktops, tablets, smartphones) and hidden relationships between devices inside and outside corporate networks. The webs of associations that iovation’s ReputationManager 360 uncovers allows organizations across multiple industries to instantly detect and shut down fraud, abuse and other online crimes before their business and customers are impacted. (more…)

Every second, someone is sharing personal information about themselves over the Internet. For most online users, this data is meaningless except to the friends and well-intended recipients of the sender. But the truth is, others are watching; and they’re watching closely. For online fraudsters, personal information is carefully pieced together and used to answer security questions that allow them to break into other peoples’ online accounts to perpetrate identity theft and steal from their bank accounts.

In the article, “Fraudster used Facebook to hack bank accounts,” cyber criminal Iain Wood spent 18 hours a day online collecting information posted by his neighbors on social networking sites including Facebook to figure out passwords that would defeat online banking security checks. Prior to getting caught by police, he managed to steal more than £35,000 (approx. $55,000 USD) over a two-year period. (more…)

A U.S. court recently ruled that banks and financial institutions will not only be held liable for fraudulent losses from business accounts, but also bear the responsibility for protecting customers through the use of fraud detection mechanisms. This decision in no way, shape or form will change the way banks already go about detecting fraud by looking at everything from IP addresses, geolocation, velocities and anomalies that could tip off fraud professionals about potentially suspicious online transactions and other high-risk activity.

However, to ensure they stay one step ahead of today’s profit-driven fraudsters, banks need to use the most advanced, anti-fraud techniques to prevent criminals from gaining access to legitimate online bank accounts. Michael Grillo’s article, “Combating Online Banking Fraud – A Top 10 List,” provides a checklist of the essential fraud detection methods that all banks should consider to ensure they are doing everything they can to stop online fraud, including: (more…)

While everyone here at iovation is ecstatic about making the Portland Business Journal’s 2011 list of the Top 100 fastest-growing privately held companies, none of this would have been possible without the outstanding customer service our employees have provided through the years. (more…)

Finding true love online, whether it’s through the right look, poetic flattery or simple mutual interests, is tough for the millions of hopeless romantics looking to find that special someone. Often times, finding Mr. Right is like searching for a needle in the haystack as those looking for love spend countless hours carefully sorting through endless personal profiles until something catches their eye. (more…)

With so much personal information easily accessible over the Internet, why would cyber criminals go to the trouble of cracking codes or breaking through virtual back doors of retail websites when they can simply pose as legitimate customers and walk right through the front door?

According to the article, “Hackers coming in through the front door,” more and more cyber criminals are creating virtual disguises that are indistinguishable from a legitimate customers, allowing them to make what appears to be valid online purchases right under a merchant’s nose. This type of deceptive fraud tactic not only impacts online merchants’ sales and profits, but is changing the way businesses protect their online retail environments. (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…)

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 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…)