How Behavioral Biometrics Can Fight New Account Fraud

Behavioral biometrics expert BioCatch is raising the alarm over new account fraud with a new blog post.

It’s a sucker-punch style of fraud in which a digital identity is stolen to create a new account that can be exploited, such as a new credit line. Citing data from Javelin, BioCatch reports that 1.5 million people fell victim to this kind of fraud in 2016, causing $2.8 billion in damage, and that “that number increased by 40 percent in 2016.”

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One relatively new and effective solution to this issue is, of course, behavioral biometrics, BioCatch’s specialty. Broadly speaking, such technology assesses patterns in online user behavior, and sometimes even how users interact with their devices, in order to identity those that seem suspicious. BioCatch highlights the examples of “Application Fluency” and “Navigational Fluency”, with hackers often interacting with web forms in unusually – and sometimes artificially – fast ways, as well as “Data Fluency”, with hackers taking a bit longer to enter personal details that legitimate users can easily recite from memory.

Understandably, there is a growing level of excitement about this technology, which can also offer valuable protection against other kinds of digital threats such as ransomware attacks. Behavioral biometrics tied with iris scanning for the third most exciting modality in FindBiometrics’ latest industry survey, and multiple market analysts expect it to build further momentum in the year to come. It’s even the subject of the next panel discussion in FindBiometrics’ acclaimed webinar series, which will feature not only BioCatch but also NuData, another pioneer of the field, as well as cutting-edge market analysis from Acuity Market Intelligence. Registrants who sign up for the free webinar will soon have the opportunity to see exactly why this technology offers such promise.