LexisNexis Risk Solutions reveals new risks for EMEA in online channels during the pandemic

According to the press release, the report dives deep into how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the global digital economy, regional economies, industries, businesses, and consumer behaviour. The LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report analyses data from more than 22.5 billion transactions processed by the LexisNexis Digital Identity Network, a 37% growth year over year. 

Mobile device transactions also continue to rise, with 66% of all transactions coming from mobile devices in the first half of 2020, up from 20% in early 2015. The Digital Identity Network also notes an uptick in transactions from new devices and new digital identities. We attribute this to many new-to-digital consumers moving online to procure goods and services that were no longer available in person or harder to access via a physical store, during the pandemic.

Moreover, the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region (EMEA) saw lower overall attack rates in comparison to most other global regions from January through June 2020. This is due to a high volume of trusted login transactions across relatively mature mobile apps. The attack patterns in EMEA were also more benign and had less volatility and fewer spikes in attack rates. However, there are some notable exceptions. For instance, desktop transactions conducted from EMEA had a higher attack rate than the global average and automated bot attack volume grew 45% year over year. 

Furthermore, the UK is also a particular pain point, as it originates the highest volume of human-initiated cyberattacks in EMEA, with Germany and France second and third in the region. The UK is also the second largest contributor to global bot attacks behind the US. 

Additional Key Findings from the LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report:

• Decline in attack rate – The overall human-initiated attack rate across the Digital Identity Network fell through the first half of 2020, showing a 33% decline year over year. The breakdown by sector shows a 23% decline in financial services and a 55% decline in ecommerce attack rates. Latin America experienced the highest attack rates of all regions globally and realised consistent growth in attack rates from March to June 2020. 

• Attack Vector Global View – Media is the only industry that recorded an overall year over year growth in human-initiated cyberattacks. The Digital Identity Network recorded the 3% increase solely across mobile browser transactions. Globally, automated bots remain a key attack vector in the Digital Identity Network. Financial services organisations experienced a surge in automated bot attacks and continue to experience more bot attacks than any other industry.  

• Across the Customer Journey – New account creations see attacks at a higher rate than any other transaction type in the online customer journey. However, the largest volume of attacks targets online payments. Login transactions have seen the biggest drop in attack rate in comparison to other use cases. 

Overall, ecommerce merchants have seen an increase in digital payments and several other key attack typologies that coincide with the lockdown period. These included account takeover attacks using identity spoofing and more first-party chargeback fraud.