What's in a name? If it's a domain name it may be fraud
If you were an online fraudster, which would you target: banks, etailers, payment gateways, online dating sites—or domain registrars? It turns out that more than a few target domain registrars. And there’s more to it than simply testing stolen credit cards to see if they work. The numbers tell the story when you listen to Kellie Peterson, executive vice president at domain registrar Name.com describe how ThreatMetrix device identification helped reduce the number of fraudulently purchased domain names by 90%. Fraudsters use stolen credit cards to purchase hundreds of domain names at a time. Registrars have five days to discover fraudulent domain name purchases and delete them. Failure to remain below the 10% threshold for bogus domain deletions set by upstream partners results in a financial penalty to registrars—potentially tens of thousands of dollars and damages its reputation with partners.
Before ThreatMetrix, Name.com employed a manual approach to catching fraudsters. This required the equivalent of 2.5 full-time employees to review each domain purchase and use what little data they had about the customer to determine whether or not to honor the transaction. Having automated and improved the process with ThreatMetrix, individual transaction review is now faster and more effective. Today, the activity is performed using three-quarters of one person’s time—a substantial time and cost savings to Name.com.
Name.com’s Kellie Peterson says this improves Name’s standing with partners “and also saves us money because we’re not on the hook for purchases made using stolen credit cards.” Name.com found that the number of attempted illegal purchases “is going down thanks in part to cyber criminals are wising-up to the fact that trying to use compromised devices to shop at Name.com is a waste of their time.” New requirements for more speed in their fraud detection led Name.com to device identification. Would more speed in your fraud detection help your business? Faster is definitely better when it comes to finding fraud.
