Front-line defense: Device recognition raises red flag on fraud

A fraudster’s easiest path through a financial institution’s defenses often starts in the gray area between security and a seamless experience for consumers.

Balancing those two priorities has been a traditional quandary in the financial services market, said John Horn, director in Digital Banking at Fiserv.

“Banks and credit unions want experiences to be as seamless as possible,” he said. “But there have been so many data breaches in the market, and brand risk is high.”

Historically, the market has presented two options to CIOs and digital banking executives: Emphasize security at the expense of experience or weaken defenses for the sake of speed and convenience.

But what if there was a third option? Device recognition, also known as device analytics, holds the potential to do away with that either-or scenario, Horn said, by going straight to a device to answer two crucial questions: Is the person logging in really a customer? Or is it someone who bought the credentials off the dark web?

 

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