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Education

The top six things keeping a particularly close eye on virtual SIM cards,
which often allow online fraudsters to get around two-
that changed online factor authentication and one-time password security
protocols.
fraud in 2021 As well as being readily accessible, virtual SIM cards
are incredibly cheap. The technology is enabling
cybercriminals to commit significant levels of fraud at an
insignificant price. What's more, it's also rendering many
phone authentication techniques obsolete, which is a real
shame, as they were previously effective.
3. Device fingerprinting became
essential, but harder (BJ)
Device fingerprinting techniques gather thousands of data
points to detect device IDs, bots and emulators to confirm
that users are who they say they are. As such, they can be
used to block suspicious logins, prevent account takeovers,
By Bence Jendruszak and Tamás Kádár and identify multi-accounting attempts. However, the
SEON movement toward privacy, as well as several Apple-led
initiatives, have made this technique harder to pull off in
t's been a busy time in the cybersecurity and online 2021.
fraud prevention space. Overall, cybercrime is on
the rise, with attacks becoming more complex and As we enter a new year, it's now apparent that businesses
I impactful. Of course, the situation isn't helped by need access to modern device fingerprinting solutions
the fact that many of us now work remotely. This new to build effective cybersecurity frameworks. That's why
reality has created several additional vulnerabilities with- it makes sense to go one step further, combining device
in online operations, which cybercriminals are only too fingerprinting with real-time data enrichment, IP, email
happy to exploit. and phone analysis, as well as create custom risk scores
using detection rules based on machine learning insights.
As we begin a new year, we thought we'd share our
observations about the top trends that changed fraud 4. Online fraud became too expensive to ignore (TK)
in 2021. We split the discussion, with Bence Jendruszak, Fueled by the further shift towards online shopping, 2021
SEON co-founder and chief operating officer, discussing
points one through three, and Tamás Kádár, co-founder was undoubtedly the year that online fraud became too
expensive to ignore. Whether you're running a business
and chief executive officer, addressing points four through
six. that stores information in the cloud, or an ecommerce
retailer selling to customers, this past year has highlighted
1. Ransomware-as-a-service-type business how effective cybercriminals have become at eating into
models took off (BJ)
Whether the company is Spotify, Netflix or another Metaverse, an evolving concept
familiar name, we've all heard about software-as-a-service
(SaaS) businesses. It's a great business model, with a ton of The metaverse can be thought of as "the world’s digital
advantages for end users. Sadly, cybercriminals seem to counterpart," wrote Jyota Gupta on the Quyteck blog.
also agree and are now utilizing this method to package "[It is] a perfect fusion of physical, augmented, and
already developed ransomware tools for buyers on the virtual reality."
dark web.
Writing for Wired magazine, Eric Ravenscraft wasn't
It's a frightening development, which really underlines so sure. He likened defining "metaverse" today to
the increasingly sophisticated nature of many online discussing what "the internet" meant in the 1970s. "To
crooks, as well as the incredible demand for their services. help you get a sense of how vague and complex a term
It has also greatly reduced the barriers to entry for those “the metaverse” can be," he wrote, "here's an exercise
looking to commit acts of cybercrime, which significantly to try: Mentally replace the phrase 'the metaverse'
increases the risk of these attacks occurring. in a sentence with 'cyberspace.' Ninety percent of
the time, the meaning won't substantially change.
2. Online fraud got much easier (BJ) That's because the term doesn't really refer to any one
specific type of technology, but rather a broad shift in
In keeping with that theme, it is also worth noting how how we interact with technology."
much easier online fraud became in 2021. We've been

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