Business Signatures Bans Bank Bunko

Analytics and fraud-prevention vendor Business Signatures has announced the availability of e-FraudMart, its new real-time session database application for discovering and tracking fraudulent financial transactions. As an extension of the Business Signatures Real-Time e-Fraud Detector, e-FraudMart allows financial institutions to identify potential fraud patterns as they happen, giving defenders the chance to prevent damage and loss. E-FraudMart's analytics engine spots patterns of unusual access, behavior, and transactions, comparing them as they happen to online session traffic patterns, location data, and hijack/bot-attack behaviors. "The engine understands customer behavior, and looks for anomalies," says Peter Relan, chairman and CEO. Anomalies can include a client logging in from an unusual ISP, a single IP address changing the account information of multiple users, or large disbursement of funds to just-set-up payees. "When [e-FraudMart] sees these patterns, it starts an investigation, using ad-hoc analytics in real-time." At least one analyst sees products like e-FraudMart as the next step in securing online transactions. "Preemptive defense against online fraud is the new frontier for protection of banking and other financial accounts on the Internet," says George Tubin, senior analyst with TowerGroup. "The sooner a financial services provider recognizes a fraud is occurring, the [more] effectively it can block intrusions and stop transactions, even those already completed online, but not yet cleared. To prevent interference with honest transactions, the system suppresses its blocking rules until a profile of the session exists. Once analysis is complete, the institution has the data it needs to block further transactions if they are indeed fishy. It also compares the data to other transactions and spot where else the potential fraudster has touched the company. "Fighting fraud often comes down to grasping the knowledge you already have in time to use it," Relan says. "From the moment a questionable pattern is recognized, [e-FraudMart] seeks matches in the stored data to identify organized fraud schemes. The breadth of research capability, as well as the potential to share this information with other financial institutions in real time, is a breakthrough in fraud defense." The release of e-FraudMart is especially timely considering the recent phishing scam that impersonates the Internal Revenue Service. Fraud analytics like e-FraudMart limits the damage of phishing by blocking criminals from acting on the data they have scammed. According to Relan, other venues where this technology could be used are Internet service providers and retail e-commerce. Related articles: A B2B Fraud Prevention Tool Fear and Loathing in the Database Marriott Vacation Club Time Shares Customer Data