How to Prevent Cryptocurrency Account Takeover

Last Updated: January 09, 2023 by Bence Jendruszak
Your business is growing, payments are flowing in and customers are delighted. But at some point, inevitably, fraudsters rear their ugly heads and start targeting you.
You’re not alone. The fraud management industry is set to grow to USD 38.2 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.8%, which proves that companies aren’t afraid to spend money on protection.
Now, these fraudulent attacks can take many forms: opening multiple accounts to claim your promos, stealing other customers’ accounts, or, most commonly, paying using stolen credit card details on your site. And dozens of other possibilities.
Whatever the case, you’re often the one who has to pay for these crimes – in loss of revenue, customers, chargeback costs or compliance fines.
Something has to be done, right? Enter fraud detection software.
Fraud detection software is designed to monitor, investigate and block fraudulent activity on your website. It’s frequently used to prevent fraudulent transactions made with stolen cards or identities.
Companies can also rely on fraud detection software and tools to confirm users at signup and login, as well as other touchpoints.
SEON offers a fully modular fraud solution that doesn’t weigh down the customer experience. Enjoy machine learning, data enrichment and the support of a team of experts in online fraud.
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Fraud detection software should cover a lot of bases, from chargeback prevention to identity verification. Here are examples of must-have features:
Without further ado, let’s look at our list of the best fraud detection software for the year – including pros and cons and which problems they solve the best.
Disclaimer: Everything you’ll read in this article was gleaned from online research, including user reviews. We did not have time to manually test every tool. This article was last updated in Q1 2023. Please feel free to contact us to request an update/correction. |
SEON prides itself on being accurate, granular and industry-agnostic.
When it comes to tools and technology, SEON features include in-depth device fingerprinting (to understand how users connect to your website), complete data enrichment based on an email address, IP address or phone number, and a way to check 50+ social media and online networks for related user info that will reveal your customers’ true intentions.
The integration is also flexible thanks to the API calls, and many businesses even use SEON as an extra layer of protection for data enrichment only (available via a Chrome plugin, among others).
Last but not least, you get complete control over the risk rules, and you can even get suggestions from a powerful machine learning engine that suggests them based on your historical business data.
Notable SEON customers include Patreon, Air France, Avis, Ladbrokes and LeoVegas.
You’ll be in capable hands with Signifyd’s team. After leaving PayPal, two engineers turned their expertise towards fraud software development, with a specific focus on enterprise ecommerce clients.
Signifyd now protects 10,000 online stores globally, helping them prevent chargebacks via three key products: Revenue Protection, Abuse Protection and Payments Optimization.
Their products are specifically geared towards high volumes of transactions, and they even automate chargeback protection via a chargeback-guarantee model, where they assume payment for chargeback admin fees.
Notable Signifyd customers include Samsung, Philips, and Omega.
Launched in 2011, Sift is now a $1 billion company, funded in part by startup accelerator Y Combinator. They offer fraud protection for a whooping 34,000 sites and apps, including world-renowned names such as Airbnb and McDonald’s.
Its key products include a Digital Trust and Safety Suite, which combines all the individual API tools into one complete solution. Then, there is a module specifically designed to authenticate users and to avoid ATO attacks, which includes the ability to enable 2FA at the same time.
For all your chargeback challenges, Sift offers a Payment Protection product, which uses the data from its global network. It analyzes payment information in real-time and uses machine learning to develop new risk rules.
Finally, you can also purchase the Dispute Management module, which is specifically designed to help monitor and log as much data as possible when going through a chargeback resolution process.
Among Sift’s customers we find Airbnb, McDonald’s and Doordash.
Founded by Brad Wiskirchen after he wrote his idea “on the back of a napkin during a sushi lunch”, Kount soon grew into a fraud detection behemoth, with 15,000 clients across the world. It was acquired by Equifax in early 2021.
Kount is focused on innovative risk tech (it owns 30 technology patents) and enterprise clients, such as Barclays, PetSmart, Staples and Chase, among others. They offer everything you need for CNP (card not present) fraud monitoring and protection via Kount Command.
For ID verification, you’ll need to purchase access to the Kount Identity Trust Global Network, which captures data from 32 billion user interactions per year, as it has done for the last 13 years.
Kount Central is more specifically built for payment providers – hence its relationship with Barclays and Chase – and Kount Control is the account takeover prevention solution.
An email address is a powerful data point if you know how to get the most info from it. It’s exactly what LexisNexis’s Emailage specializes in so you can get a customer profile with an associated risk score based on an email address only.
Despite starting off as a startup, Emailage’s technology is now incorporated into LexisNexis, a huge cybersecurity and risk management corporation, which has helped it access data from 30 million fraud events a year and 5.9 billion digital identifiers worldwide.
While Emailage claims to have customers in a variety of industries including fintech, online gaming, OTA and ecommerce, among others, its official clients don’t appear on the website. However, any industry insider will tell you this vendor is very well regarded.
Founded in 2012, ArkOwl was developed by GitLab engineer Mike Greiling along with Rob Daline, before joining NICE Actimze’s platform-as-a-service in 2019.
ArkOwl’s key selling point? Its ability to pull data from fresh databases such as social networking sites, WHOIS databases, webmail hosts, service providers and more. It can perform data enrichment based on an email address, phone number or IP address – for instance, when looking at domain information.
Another mature and well-established fraud detection software. Founded in 1997 (originally under the name Whitepages), Ekata offers global identity verification and fraud prevention via APIs, including a Transaction Risk API, Address Risk API and Phone Intelligence API.
The anti-fraud vendor also offers two onboarding APIs (Merchant and Account) as well as a Pro Insight tool designed specifically for manual reviews.
Acquired by Mastercard in 2021, Ekata has first-hand experience with enterprise clients such as Lyft, Equifax and Microsoft.
Don’t let the multiple name changes confuse you: TruValidate (formerly TransUnion and Iovation) is a well-established iGaming fraud prevention specialist that has been operating since 2004.
Their key product is a device recognition technology designed to help authenticate users and it’s pretty much the defacto fraud detection software of the iGaming world. However, the software is also prevalent in the fintech, credit union, healthcare and ecommerce industries too.
Key products include a fully customizable authentication solution, document verification via a proprietary database and biometric verification. On TruValidate’s customer roster one finds Kaidee, Playcherry and Gocompare.com
Founded in Australia in 2005, ThreatMetrix was later acquired by the LexisNexis Risk Solutions platform, which also includes the aforementioned Emailage. By leveraging the huge databases of LexisNexis’ parent company, RELX Group, ThreatMetrix’s trust decisions and fraud detection are informed by 78 billion records, with 270 million transactions being processed and analyzed daily.
The main products offered by the software suite are designed to be a complete fraud prevention platform, with modules covering device intelligence, identity authentication, community-based data enrichment, behavioral biometrics, and automated decisioning. At the contract level, ThreatMetrix has services available to cater to distinct verticals, and to large-scale businesses in particular.
As for who uses ThreatMetrix, according to reports, this vendor’s customers include SunTrust Banks, United Healthcare and The North Face clothing.
As Visa’s proprietary fraud solution, the expectations for this software are naturally high. Cybersource was founded in 1994, and pioneered online payment as soon as ecommerce became a reality, then vastly expanded its capabilities by acquiring Authorize.net in 2007.
In terms of sheer processing and analytical power, Cybersource offers four main modules to address payment fraud, all of which are powered by Visa’s Decision Manager software, which processed some 32 billion transactions last year. Those main modules for payment acceptance, fraud management, payment security, and unified commerce payment solutions come together to provide automated end-to-end service for ecommerce payments.
In particular, the unified payment solution allows businesses to easily transition between payment models, like BNPL, as well as take on new forms of payment currency with confident fraud protection. Other granular modules in the suite are also dedicated to helping merchants grow their reach, with capabilities for currency conversion, global tax compliance, and customer lifetime management.
Cybersource’s customers include Zoom, Rimowa and Colgate-Palmolive.
FraudHunt was founded with the goal of providing emerging markets with a lightweight and affordable fraud prevention option. To achieve this, the founding team of data analysts and developers took proven methods and developed a platform that provides a dynamic security solution for ecommerce marketplaces of all sizes and verticals – including notable customers Crediexpress and DataBrain.
FraudHunt’s risk prevention solution revolves around scoring incoming traffic based on risk points in their device and browser fingerprint. Each user gets assigned a score based on whether or not they flip certain triggers, such as proxy detection and identifying data from operating systems, browser information, and their behavioral patterns inside the marketplace.
The software develops a real-time score based on lookups performed during the customer journey, then assigns each a score to segment the traffic into quality, low-risk, or potentially fraudulent customers.
The American Express company’s fraud prevention solution is Accertify, which touts itself a true end-to-end fraud solution provider, from customer authentication to SCA optimization, and even chargeback management for those inevitable occurrences.
Having processed its first transaction more than 15 years ago, Accertify is one of the prevention solutions with the most legacy available today. Indeed, many of its customers were originally brick-and-mortar merchants that made ecommerce offerings available later in their histories and chose to turn to a known credit provider for its stability.
Accertify’s main fraud detection mobile is called Accertify Digital Identity. To develop insights, the machine learning algorithms reference databases of community user behavior analytics and device intelligence to decide how to label each user. This is coupled with chargeback and reputational data from across the massive network of ecommerce partners – which also inform Accertify’s day-one strategies so that results can be seen as soon after integration as possible.
Notable Accertify customers include SouthWest Airlines, StubHub! and Urban Outfitters.
SEON’s fraud APIs are highly configurable for various business use cases to match your needs, with machine learning, unique digital footprint analysis and granular reporting.
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As fraud shows no signs of slowing down, you now have access to more risk management tools than ever before. The problem: it can be hard to evaluate, test, and choose the best one based on your fraud challenges.
We hope this comparison will provide a good primer on the topic and that you’ll soon get started on your road towards a safer, healthier online business.
– Monitor: Fraud detection tools will allow you to capture data about users. For example, an IP address or the kind of device they use.
– Investigate: You also need to be able to learn more about users based on the data you have. This is where data enrichment can help, to complete the picture about the users.
– Block: Most fraud detection software will allow you to automatically allow or block certain actions based on risk rules.
Because there’s been such a boom in the market for fraud prevention tools in recent years, it helps to consider the following six points before choosing your tool:
1. Your fraud challenge: Do you mainly need to reduce chargebacks? Or also to verify identities and authentication at login?
2. Integration type: Most modern tools work as SaaS via API calls, but you might want to consider on-site integration or even software that works via browser extension.
3. Preset rules vs customizable systems: Some companies need simple solutions that work out-of-the-box. Others need more control over the risk rules (to determine how risky an action is).
4. The pricing model: Most legacy fraud detection software locks you into multi-year contracts, and you’re not allowed to test it until you buy it.
5. False positives: If your fraud detection software is too stringent, you might find yourself losing business from legitimate customers. The incentive is particularly strong when your vendor promises to pay chargeback fees.
6. Bundled tools vs pick and choose: While most vendors will split their products into different offers, make sure you only purchase the tools you really need. This is easier to do with modular fraud prevention tools.
Today, all businesses are at risk from fraud, no matter their sector. In fact, the current fraud landscape demonstrates that those companies and decision-makers who think they couldn’t be affected are more likely to be targeted – exactly because they are less likely to invest in their defenses.
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Bence Jendruszák is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of SEON. Thanks to his leadership, the company received the biggest Series A in Hungarian history in 2021. Bence is passionate about cybersecurity and its overlap with business success. You can find him leading webinars with industry leaders on topics such as iGaming fraud, identity proofing or machine learning (when he’s not brewing questionable coffee for his colleagues).
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