Seven Clues that a Web Visitor is a Fraudster
Fraudster or customer? The answer to that question keeps getting harder to answer in the online world while the consequences of getting it wrong get more severe. The last mile in web fraud prevention can’t be bridged by the tools and means that rely on the personal information (PII) we all supply to the various web sites we visit. No, the last mile in web fraud prevention is more like a chasm that must be leaped by a new class of anti-fraud technology that relies on the wealth of anonymous characteristics spawned for a web transaction that make each a unique, measurable event—information from a computer, its Internet connection and the context of a web transaction—all intelligently managed in such a way that reveals truth. Here are seven clues that can help you derive a confidence factor for the visitors knocking on your website door to create a new account, use a credit card, or login:
- I’ve seen this computer at our website before—it has a questionable track-record with my business
- Someone else in the network reports suspicious or negative experience with a device
- Something’s out of place, missing or inconsistent—a good customer using their computer for legitimate purposes wouldn’t behave (that) way
- This computer tried to use 20 credit cards in 5 minutes—what???
- The computer is using a hidden proxy—to register for a new credit card account???
- The computer appears to be under the control of a bot
- The true geographical location by IP address is different than where the person claims to be
You can learn more about how anonymous data is increasingly useful to help stop online fraud in this article in the newly launched Security Week.
- Tom
P.S. If you haven’t heard about Panopticlick—a project by the Electronic Frontier Foundation then you really should check out the article
