BioCatch Calls Attention to Rising Rates of Digital Fraud

BioCatch is taking a look back at 2019 to warn consumers about the growing threat of digital fraud. The company noted in a new blog post that digital fraud has been steadily rising every year, and cited several studies that show the trend continued heading into 2020.

With that in mind, BioCatch explained that 40 percent of the global population has experienced some form of digital fraud. The number is 16 percent in the United States, though the country itself is the biggest fraud victim due to the high volume of large transactions. The 16 percent figure corresponds to roughly 40 million individuals.

BioCatch also called attention to retail fraud and rogue apps. With regards to the former, the company cited a recent LexisNexis report that found that retail fraud has tripled since 2017, with the average retailer losing 1.86 percent of their annual revenue due to such activity. Botnets were particularly menacing, and accounted for 7.1 percent of all monthly transactions.

Rogue apps, meanwhile, are seemingly legitimate applications that serve as a cover for various kinds of malware. For instance, Buguroo recently warned about three apps that are available via Google Play that were in fact designed to gain root privileges on a victim’s device. Fraud related to rogue apps is up 300 percent in the first quarter of 2019 alone. 

Of course, BioCatch is pitching behavioral biometrics as a potential solution to the problem. The company argues that its technology is especially useful against botnets, since it is able to separate bots from genuine customers based on behavioral patterns.

BioCatch has previously warned consumers about the threat of deepfakes, which are becoming more and more difficult to catch as technology becomes more sophisticated. The company has also tried to raise awareness about application fraud (or new account fraud) that is carried out with synthetic identities created with stolen personal information.

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January 20, 2020 – by Eric Weiss