With criminal tactics only becoming more advanced, solutions like Login AI can help you mitigate risks efficiently.
Account takeover fraud is a common precursor to identity theft, which involves a criminal gaining control of a consumer’s account. Once sensitive information such as a PIN, passwords, or answers to security questions is collected, criminals are able to get to work.
This is the point when scammers can change account settings like statement mailing address, email, phone number, or password. A criminal can effectively bar access to the user by changing the password and begin initiating unauthorized withdrawals.
Unfortunately, by the time a user is aware of the suspicious activity, the damage is done.
How is account takeover fraud possible?
We would all like to think that our unique, strong, and well-guarded credentials are safe from criminals as long as we can keep a secret. However, the tactics they use completely shatter that reality.
How exactly do criminals harvest the credentials needed to commit fraud?
Credential stuffing
Once a breach has occurred, a prized target for criminals is password databases. One may think that the hashed password files stored on most systems are safe from prying eyes. This is not necessarily true. Shorter, less complex passwords that contain common words and numbers are easy for users to remember, making them very common in organizations.
Scammers know this and exploit this knowledge by pre-computing the hash values of popular or easily fabricated passwords. Once they have a database of hashed passwords, they simply create a list of real passwords to try across an organization’s accounts.
Fraudsters also sell these bulk credentials on the dark web. So, for a small fee, criminals can start credential guessing sooner.
Phishing emails
Email is a popular form of communication in modern enterprise environments. Because of its popularity, email is a ripe hunting ground for scammers to harvest user credentials.
One click on a malicious link or attachment, and you have trouble. Users can either be redirected to a seemingly legitimate web portal to log in to an account that they have been prompted to take action on, or malware can be installed that logs the keystrokes of their every entry.
In other words, users unknowingly hand over names and passwords to criminals using this approach.
Social engineering
In some cases, all it takes is a phone call or in-person conversation with a scammer masquerading as someone else. Indeed, someone in a position of authority, an IT technician, or even a sales rep “calling from the road” are all personas used to trick unsuspecting employees.
Promising rewards, insisting urgency, and making threats are ways that scammers trick employees into giving up their credentials. When “Tom from IT” calls and says he is validating user passwords because of a recent server crash and needs your credentials, some users give them up without a second thought.
Brute force and bots
Automation is one of a criminal’s greatest advantages. Just as businesses strive to automate repetitive, manual tasks, a fraudster attempting to guess simple passwords can accomplish so by running simple scripts or using freely available tools.
These utilities are widely available. This means criminals and their random, opportunistic attacks are more prevalent than they used to be.
Fraud.net is here to help with Login AI
Account takeover fraud skyrocketed 282% between 2019 and 2020. With criminal tactics only becoming more advanced, solutions like Login AI can help you mitigate risks efficiently.
Deliver a frictionless customer experience
With our highly effective Login AI solution, your end users can have peace of mind and go about their day without worrying about the responsibility of stopping every single account takeover fraud attempt manually. The ability to stop criminals in session positions organizations to terminate the illicit practices that fraudsters carry out.
Dynamic device fingerprinting
Each device type, browser, version, and session creates a unique device fingerprint that can be used to identify a device. Login AI uses this information to detect account takeover fraud prior to the first login.
By tracking users’ personal devices typically used to access accounts, Login AI can flag the attempt immediately. This provides another layer of detection for fraudulent activities. Contextual information and behavioral patterns that even seasoned fraud response team members have difficulty determining are always on the radar with Login AI.
Detecting bots and proxies
With the market so rich in affordable, easily accessible cloud technologies, fraudsters no longer need to possess hardware that is operated in a traceable, physical location. This enables these criminals to quickly deploy proxy servers to hide their digital tracks across the internet and destroy them with the click of a button after their attack.
The same low-cost solutions allow fraudsters to rapidly launch mass campaigns of brute-forcing bots to crack passwords, sometimes in minutes. Login AI can determine network traffic with a proxy origin or detect tell-tale signs of bot activity.
Real-time alerts and risk scores for every login
In the account takeover game, tomorrow’s too late. So, real-time alerts sent at the moment that malicious activity occurs allow the right people to respond when it matters.
The correlated risk scores help users determine a legitimate account takeover attempt upfront. They can also rule out any false positives that can send teams running in circles for days.
Our Collective Intelligence Network consists of a consortium of vendors and partners that participate in our fraud intelligence-sharing program. By aggregating all of this data from multiple sources across the globe, Login AI is able to detect potential account takeovers even if it is your first time interacting with an entity.
Schedule a demo today
Don’t wait around for the next account takeover to spoil your customer’s experience and expose them to loss and inconvenience. Fraud.net’s Login AI provides your organization with a highly effective means of detecting and alerting account takeover fraud before it’s too late.
Contact us today to learn more about our detection, prevention, and analysis technology.