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March 13, 2017 • Issue 17:03:01

The changing face of fraud

"While this trend toward SSL/TLS encryption is overall
a positive one, it also merits a word of caution," wrote
SonicWall. "SSL/TLS encryption makes it more difficult
for cyber thieves to intercept payment information from
consumers, but it also provides an uninspected and
trusted backdoor into the network that cyber criminals
can exploit to sneak in malware" and thus create attack
vectors only deep packet inspections can detect.

But a number of security-focused companies are working
vigorously to deflect fraud with technologies that detect
malware, spot transaction laundering, gather merchant
intelligence, assess consumer behavioral patterns and
monitor for illicit web content, all part of a growing arsenal
of defenses to stop fraud at the outset in real time.

By Ann Train Trustwave Holdings Inc., for example, developed a
web-risk monitoring portfolio that ISOs can leverage to
ybercrime perpetrated worldwide in 2016 cost identify, prevent and remediate illegal ecommerce activity
the global economy more than $450 billion and in merchant portfolios. It also helps with compliance
added 2 billion personal records stolen to an obligations and delivers value-added protections beyond
C already extensive tab, based on statistics from what merchants can normally manage on their own.
small business insurance provider Hiscox Inc.
"From the time the merchant becomes a customer of
Visible gains in online commerce have also contributed to the ISO and throughout that customer engagement, our
card-not-present (CNP) fraud as many predicted would service can be used to ensure compliance with card and
happen when the U.S. transitioned to less fraud-friendly industry standards," said Michael Petitti, Senior Vice
EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) chip cards for card- President of Global Alliances at Trustwave. "If I can tell my
present transactions. Javelin Strategy & Research estimated merchants that I'm scanning their websites for malware,
that year-over-year CNP fraud spiked 40 percent in 2016, that's valuable to the merchant."
and the incidence of identity, new account and account
takeover fraud inched upward as well.

Conversely, POS malware attacks declined by 93 percent Contributed articles inside by:
from 2014 to 2016, according to SonicWall Inc.'s 2017 Annual
Threat Report, which measures data collected from daily Steven Feldshuh ...................................................................................22
feeds from more than 1 million security sensors in nearly John Tucker .............................................................................................37
200 countries. Over the same period, Secure Sockets Layer/ O.B. Rawls IV ...........................................................................................40
Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) encrypted traffic grew
by 38 percent as cloud-based application usage spread Jeff Fortney .............................................................................................44
across global networks. Mike Ackerman ......................................................................................46

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