ThreatMetrix Protected 10 of the Top 20 Online Retailers Against Fraud During Cyber Week
San Jose, CA (PRWEB) December 04, 2014 -- ThreatMetrix®, the fastest-growing provider of context-based security and advanced fraud prevention solutions, today announced the ThreatMetrix® Global Trust Intelligence Network (The Network) screened and protected online transactions for 10 of the top 20 online retailers during Cyber Week, which includes Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. For Thanksgiving Day in particular, ThreatMetrix doubled the number of transactions protected year-over-year for the third year running. Using data from The Network, ThreatMetrix identified several trends in consumer spending throughout Cyber Week.
According to comScore, online spending during this period grew 24 percent over the last year, to $6.46 billion and on Monday alone, online sales passed $2 billion for the first time. Throughout the five-day period beginning on Nov. 27 and ending on Dec. 1, ThreatMetrix protected nearly half of the total online sales through e-commerce retailers.
“Cybercriminals will always follow the money, meaning the increase in spending around Thanksgiving weekend is a hotbed for fraud,” said Alisdair Faulkner, chief products officer, ThreatMetrix. “The fact that ThreatMetrix enabled merchants to automatically approve nearly half of all e-commerce spending over the five-day period serves as validation of the depth of The Network, which protects more than 850 million transactions in a typical month and many more around the holidays.”
Leveraging data from The Network, ThreatMetrix identified several key trends in online spending over the holiday weekend. These include:
• Mobile represented nearly 40 percent of all transactions – Throughout Cyber Week this year, mobile continued its rapid growth, accounting for 39 percent of all transactions. Consumers are becoming more comfortable shopping on mobile devices, but their average spend is still higher when shopping on their desktop – according to The Network, the average desktop transaction was more than double the average mobile transaction over the long weekend.
“Shopping on a mobile device similar to walking around and having a few appetizers before your Thanksgiving meal for consumers,” said Faulkner. “You’re probably only going to have one or two, so you’re not too full for the main event. Sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner is what desktop shopping is like – and consumers are still more likely to do most of their larger spending from desktops.”
• iOS dominated mobile transactions – iOS dominated mobile transactions, accounting for more than 80 percent of transactions analyzed, versus about 13-16 percent via Android. Additionally, iPhones alone accounted for 51 percent of all mobile transactions. iPad came in a close second with more than 30 percent of all mobile OS/device transactions analyzed. However, according to recent data from the “ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Report: Q4 2014,” 48 percent of mobile attacks target iOS devices.
• Consumers return to sites they trust – 71 percent of all transactions analyzed on Thanksgiving and the following Friday were logins to existing accounts where customers have already stored their personal information, and on Monday logins to existing accounts accounted for 61 percent of all analyzed transactions.
“Account takeover is without a doubt the biggest challenge facing e-retailers in the wake of many huge data breaches over the past year, compromising hundreds of millions of user accounts,” said Faulkner. “During Cyber Week, the last thing online retailers want to worry about is having revenue taken away from purchases made through account takeover attacks. Chargebacks can take up to three months to return, which can cause a huge hangover for retailers around the New Year after the holidays. ThreatMetrix is protecting major retailers’ customers from account takeover, creating trust and repeat purchases for those brands.”
According to recent data from The Network, there is a major upswing in fraud losses due to account takeover activity on retail websites. However, retailers cannot simply add more rigorous login credentials, as they cause friction for customers and result in cart abandonment. For example, customers are getting used to storing information on a mobile phone or online account, and they especially prefer to use that option when attempting to shop on their mobile devices.
“It can be difficult for retailers to use such technology as IP geo-location data to ensure mobile transactions are authentic, and many make the mistake of creating added friction for the user to combat potential fraudsters,” said Faulkner. “Most companies view fraud as a cost center, but it should be viewed as a profit center. By combatting fraud without adding friction to the user experience and instead giving authentic customers the red carpet experience, retailers can ensure those customers will return to their site, therefore increasing the overall bottom line.”
This Cyber Week, ThreatMetrix was able to protect nearly half the total market share of spending through the collective intelligence of its global data repository, The Network, which analyzes more than 850 million monthly transactions, and protects more than 210 million active user accounts across 3,000 customers and 15,000 websites. The Network is the most comprehensive data repository of its kind, using its real-time analytics to evaluate logins, payments, new account registrations, remote access attempts and other transactions for validity.
ThreatMetrix Resources
• Share this news on Twitter: ThreatMetrix protected nearly half of all #CyberWeek transactions. Learn more here: http://goo.gl/k58fHw
• Press release: ThreatMetrix Predicts Mobile Transactions and Account Takeover Attacks Will be Easy Pickings for Cybercriminals This Holiday Season
• Guilty Until Proven Innocent: How Incorrectly Identifying Good Customers as Cybercriminals Damages Your Bottom Line
• eBook: ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Report: Q4 2014
About ThreatMetrix
ThreatMetrix builds trust on the Internet by offering market-leading advanced fraud prevention and frictionless context-based security solutions. These solutions authenticate consumer and workforce access to mission critical applications using real-time identity and access analytics that leverage the world’s largest trusted identity network.
ThreatMetrix secures enterprise applications against account takeover, payment fraud, fraudulent account registrations, malware, and data breaches. Underpinning the solution is the ThreatMetrix® Global Trust Intelligence Network, which analyzes over 850 million monthly transactions and protects more than 210 million active user accounts across 3,000 customers and 15,000 websites.
The ThreatMetrix solution is deployed across a variety of industries, including financial services, enterprise, e-commerce, payments, social networks, government and insurance.
For more information, visit http://www.threatmetrix.com or call 1-408-200-5755.
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Beth Kempton, Walker Sands Communications, +1 (312) 241-1178, [email protected]
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