Fraud Fighting Technologies Protected Consumers and Saved Retailers Millions This Holiday Season

Using NuData security services retailers worldwide saved an estimated $500 million or more during 2018 holidays  

The holiday season is the perfect time for fraudsters to amplify their activities as they often go unnoticed by retailers who are under pressure to deliver the right offers and maximize on sales. In December 2018, NuData, a Mastercard company and leader in the field of online user verification, helped retailers worldwide identify over 1 billion irregular digital activities and stop 99 percent of these fraudulent attacks, saving retailers worldwide over $500 million.

“Ecommerce is particularly vulnerable during the holiday season,” said Ryan Wilk, vice president, Customer Success, NuData. “Amidst all the shopping frenzy, retailers struggle to verify and assess the identity of the individual on the other end of a device without causing inconvenience to legitimate shoppers. Using NuData security solutions, retailers can add a layer of intelligence to websites and mobile applications to detect threats without creating friction in the shopping experience.”

Using machine learning, NuData, analyzed events in real time to anticipate and prevent fraudulent card-not-present transactions, which includes ecommerce payments.  It flagged 52 percent of login traffic – 50 percent from desktops and 35 percent from mobile devices – as fraudulent by monitoring website traffic changes, analyzing sudden changes in browser type, surfing speed and time on page and stopping them as high-risk deviations. By accurately flagging these events as fraudulent, retailers could stop access or monitor them closely to prevent fraud.

Insights from NuData indicate that fraudsters laid the groundwork months before the holiday season. Fraud attempts started well before December. In fact, NuData identified and flagged 37 percent of the new customer accounts created in October as high risk. This number spiked from the yearly average of 14 percent. In addition, botnet attacks were up 224 percent in the month of September. NuData also noted that abnormal behavior across logins, IP addresses or purchase behavior was up 47 percent for the same month.

“Compared to single-layer solutions that only focus on one type of threat, multi-layered solutions are the answer to protect against a wide range of attacks,” said Julie Conroy, Research Director, Aite Group.

About NuData 

NuData Security is a Mastercard company. It helps businesses identify users based on their online interactions and stops all forms of automated fraud. By analyzing over 350 billion events annually, NuData harnesses the power of behavioral and biometric analysis, enabling its clients to identify the human behind the device accurately. This allows clients to verify users before a critical decision, block account takeover, stop automated attacks, and reduce customer insult. NuData’s products are used by some of the biggest brands in the world to prevent fraud while offering a great customer experience.

About Mastercard

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. Our global payments processing network connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities - such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances - easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.