Biometrics

How behavioural biometrics can protect organisations, customers against fraud

(Last Updated On: 13 October 2022)

Behavioral Biometrics profiles user behavior and device association – including mouse clicks, swipe patterns, keystrokes, typing speed, application and process fluency.


South Africa, October 13, 2022: The rapid rise in digitization, self-service on boarding and faster payments has left many banks, financial institutions and their customers at risk from fraudsters and cybercriminals. While many fraud- and risk-management measures severely hamper customer experience, MoData’s AI-driven Behavioral Biometrics platform ensures that the customer experience remains seamless while delivering advanced fraud protection.

It does this by transforming digital behavior into powerful insights that red flag fraudulent behavior, helping financial institutions and digital businesses to deliver a comprehensive fraud-management strategy while building an online environment where customers feel safe to interact.

“Organizations need a layered approach to fully protect themselves and their customers against fraud and money-laundering risks, but this doesn’t mean introducing friction to the client experience,” says fraud and cybercrimes thought leader, Clive Gungudoo, MoData’s Director of Financial Crimes and Risk Management.

Clive has more than 25 years’ experience in multinational banking, technology and integrated financial services and has expert knowledge on exactly what solutions organizations need to implement to minimize the financial, reputational and regulatory risk to customers.

“MoData’s Behavioural Biometrics solution is a powerful and necessary tool that analyses a user’s physical and cognitive digital behaviour to distinguish between genuine users and criminals to detect online fraud in real time without hindering the experience of genuine customers.”

How Behavioral Biometrics works

Behavioral Biometrics profiles user behavior and device association – including mouse clicks, swipe patterns, keystrokes, typing speed, application and process fluency, device orientation, hesitation or duress – and compares this activity against the historical profile of the individual user and across the genuine and criminal population to provide passive authentication against norms for “good” and “bad” behavior.

“Cybercriminals input data differently from genuine users,” explains Clive. “For example, cybercriminals repeatedly delete and fix errors and rely on copy, paste and automated programs. Similarly, genuine users often hesitate on certain fields in an online application, while criminals confidently fill in applications as they are familiar with the various steps because they have been through the process many times.”

While legitimate and private data can be stolen or sold on the dark web and fake or synthetic identities can be manufactured, each user exhibits consistent behavioral patterns that cannot be replicated, spoofed or stolen, regardless of the fraudsters’ methods of attack.

MoData’s Behavioral Biometrics solution detects and prevents account opening and account takeover fraud by passively and continuously monitoring user behavior from login to logout. It is invisible to the end user, allowing consumers to go about their digital banking and other online activities while also being guaranteed maximum security.

The solution also protects financial institutions and their customers from automated account takeover attacks such as Remote Access Attacks (RATs), BOT attacks, Device Emulators and Malware, and equally protects vulnerable customers by detecting social engineering scams such as One Time Pin (OTP) vishing, business email compromise (BEC) and Authorized Push Payment (APP) voice scams that have become increasingly prevalent and sophisticated.

The platform offers continuous protection by analyzing each user session and delivering a risk score and analysis based on the AI behavioral models. Depending on the risk score, an organization can then request additional authentication or perform a full manual review. Any confirmed fraud feedback is incorporated back into the system, continually enhancing and improving the accuracy of the platform and enabling instant adaptation to new and emerging fraudulent attacks.

MoData’s Behavioral Biometrics solution can be seamlessly adopted into digital customer journeys – organizations can either leverage the built-in Behavioral Biometrics tools or integrate the behavioral data into existing fraud-management tools or case-management systems through a robust set of APIs.

“Strong fraud protection and seamless online customer journeys are equally critical as the world becomes more digitized,” says Clive. “Our out-of-the-box Biometric Behavioral solution is a non-intrusive financial crime risk-management control that delivers immediate value upon deployment.”

“The numbers speak for themselves – on average, customers report 10 times return on investment based on fraud losses prevented. Simply put, Behavioral Biometrics is an essential control that organizations need to have in place at the point of online interaction to protect themselves, their digital customer journey and their own reputation.”

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