Bots on Mobile Devices Fuel Holiday Shopping Cyberattacks
ATLANTA, Dec. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions released an analysis looking at transactions and cyberattacks that occurred between Wednesday, November 27, 2019 through Tuesday, December 3, 2019 (Black Friday week). The data was acquired from the LexisNexis® Digital Identity Network®, a crowdsourced intelligence network comprised of data from approximately 38 billion global transactions each year including logins, payments and new account creations. The Black Friday week data analysis offers the industry a first look at trends shaping this important season for retail and e-commerce.
The deals and offers available over the holiday shopping week continue to draw more consumers every year, with the Digital Identity Network recording a 48% increase globally in transactions compared to last year.
Key Findings include:
-- The Growth in Bots Targeting Mobile App Registrations - In 2019 bots
evolved to target new account creations, with the Black Friday week
continuing this global trend. New accounts offer fraudsters the
opportunity to test, validate and build online identities for financial
gain. During the Black Friday week, fraudsters went one step further,
targeting new accounts created using mobile devices. These new mobile
accounts, or mobile app registrations, provide fraudsters the
opportunity to mimic new customers and initiate transactions through an
established and seemingly genuine account. One U.S. payment processor
actually recorded a sustained 2,000% increase in its bot traffic over
this period.
-- Fraudulent Cart Sizes Globally Nearly Triple the Size of Legitimate Ones
- While record revenues generated over the Black Friday weekend dominate
headlines every year, Black Friday week is also a major money maker for
fraudsters, who use the increase in online traffic as camouflage for
fraudulent transactions to increase their revenue per transaction. The
average shopping cart transaction value rejected as high risk or
fraudulent over the 2019 Black Friday week was 179% higher than
legitimate transactions - $329 versus $118 - which indicates that
fraudsters load carts at higher dollar amounts than the average buyer.
-- Payments Surge as Fraudsters Use Mobile Browsers to Cash Out - We
usually see a surge in payments Black Friday week as consumers shop for
the best deals. This 2019 shopping week was no different: The Digital
Identity Network recorded globally three times as many payments when
compared to a normal shopping day. However, consumers increasingly
showed a preference for making payments via mobile with 64% of all
payments during Black Friday week coming from mobile devices. For one
global payment processor, the mobile browser attack rate on payments
doubled over the Black Friday shopping week compared to average rates.
-- Mobile Growing as a Target but Desktop Remains Firmly in the Crosshairs
- According to the 2019 LexisNexis Cybercrime Report, the mobile channel
is a growing target for fraudsters, increasing 12% in the last year
alone. However, desktop transactions remain in the crosshairs for
fraudsters, who target it more often: The desktop attack rate in the
first half of 2019 was 3.4% versus 1.4% for mobile, with lower mobile
attack volumes likely due to mobile being inherently more secure than
desktop. During the 2019 Black Friday week, desktop attack volumes
remained high and in proportion to transaction volumes. Fraud attack
rates for several large online retailers doubled during this period in
correlation to increased transactional volume.
-- Black Friday Becoming a Global Target As Black Friday increasingly
becomes an international shopping event, fraudsters from across the
world are taking advantage of the availability of breached identity data
to launch attacks and profit from increased transactional traffic. This
year, the Digital Identity Network recorded attacks originating from
Russia, Belarus, China, Vietnam, and South Korea, as well as the U.S.
"Cybercriminals are opportunity seekers and travel paths of least resistance, shifting their focus based on consumer patterns," said Kim Sutherland, vice president of Fraud and Identity Market Planning at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. "As consumers ramp up their purchase volumes and increasingly utilize mobile devices to transact, data shows that fraudsters will likely continue to progressively target mobile and with higher dollar fraud."
Sutherland continued, "The LexisNexis Fraud Multiplier(SM) for 2019 showed that for every dollar lost to fraud retailers and e-commerce merchants incur an additional $3.13 on average in associated costs including lost revenue, chargeback fees, merchandise redistribution and other fees. However, employing a multilayered, risk-aware fraud prevention program remains the greatest defense against fraud losses."
Learn more about the LexisNexis® Risk Solutions 2019 True Cost of Fraud(SM) here. View the latest LexisNexis® Risk Solutions 2019 Cybercrime Report here.
About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data and advanced analytics to provide insights that help businesses and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. We provide data and technology solutions for a wide range of industries including insurance, financial services, healthcare and government. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information-based and analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers across industries. For more information, please visit www.risk.lexisnexis.com and www.relx.com.
Media Contact:
Marcy Theobald
678.694.6681
Marcy.Theobald@lexisnexisrisk.com
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