Experts are warning that scammers may increasingly look to capitalize on anti-fraud gaps in alternative lending and payment models this year, after targeting over a million online lenders in 2016.
ThreatMetrix operates a global Digital Identity Network which analyzes around two billion transactions for customers each month.
It blocked 80 million attacks using fake or stolen credentials during 2016 in the finance sector, and claimed the number of attacks targeting alternative lenders jumped 150% from Q3 to Q4 2016.
Cybercrime gangs are likely to continue their focus on emerging financial services because they can exploit the time delays that are a common feature of reporting loan agreements to credit bureaus, ThreatMetrix claimed.
The vendor’s Q4 2016 Cybercrime Report out today also noted a 10% growth in overall financial services transaction volumes in the UK, from an already high level of nearly one billion in Q3 – driven by an uptick in mobile use.
Over three-quarters of transactions – including payments, account log-ins and account creations – now come from mobile devices in financial services, it said.
This has actually improved fraud prevention efforts, as it provides financial services firms with “a richer and more complete contextual background for every user, helping them build a more accurate and unique digital identity to analyze the legitimacy of future transactions,” according to ThreatMetrix VP of strategy, Vanita Pandey.
“In addition, genuine mobile apps afford the user an extra degree of protection from the built-in security features and associated biometrics that can be leveraged to keep accounts safe,” she told Infosecurity.
“I think the risk actually comes at the point of registration for mobile: this is the opportunity for a fraudster to try and hijack a user account, and perhaps capitalize on the fact that there is less background data on that user.”
Elsewhere in the report, ThreatMetrix claimed to have stopped 122 million fraud attacks in Q4, which incorporates the busy Christmas shopping period. That figure is up 35% on the previous year, while rejected transactions jumped 15% – highlighting the increased threat levels to firms.