Tamas Kadar, SEON's Co-Founder and CEO, shares more about the company, types of fraud that have made the headlines in 2022, and what to watch out for in 2023.
SEON is using real-time data, machine learning, and near-instant decisions to redefine what it means to fight online fraud and fincrime. By offering easy, rapid integration and fair pay-as-you-go flexibility, we’re able to offer a simplified, modern way to tackle this problem. Our solution leverages digital and social footprints from 50+ platforms to identify the telltale signs of fraud and has become the go-to fraud prevention solution for ambitious fintech leaders, like Revolut, NuBank, Afterpay, Patreon, Sorare, and mollie.
We’ve certainly seen the rise of account takeover (ATO) attacks in 2022, which has been concerning. This form of attack happens when a criminal gains access to a genuine consumer account. It can affect anyone and any type of account, including social media, email, online banking, and even credit cards. Sadly, ATO attacks are on the rise, with research now estimating that around 22% of all Americans have fallen victim to it in the past.
ATO attacks can be used against any sector but are particularly damaging to the ecommerce industry. When a customer experiences account takeover fraud, they often blame the merchant for the breach, even if it was the customer who unknowingly let the fraudster in. This impacts consumer trust and brand image – and can wreak havoc on customer loyalty. More broadly, it can begin to affect trust in things like online shopping in general.
In the iGaming sector, we continue to see multiple account fraud continuing to create several challenges. Fraudsters create dozens, even hundreds, of accounts using fake credentials in order to tilt the balance in their favour online. Sadly, these are then often used to facilitate other fraudulent schemes, including bonus abuse, ‘gnoming’, and chip dumping. Especially in the US, where iGaming regulation is still taking shape, businesses must be very careful.
As the world continues its digital migration, fraudsters are finding it easier to gain access to personal information and card details. That’s one of the big reasons why fraud rates are on the rise across all aspects of society, but especially online. Similarly, with the global economic forecast worsening by the day, people are beginning to look for new ways to generate money, and unfortunately, fraud often offers just that.
Thankfully, there are tools on offer to fight back, with many of them more accessible now than ever before. Chiefly, I’d recommend that companies who are looking for effective online fraud prevention systems prioritise solutions that leverage a true AI brain, as well as Blackbox and Whitebox Machine Learning technologies. Increasingly, it’s technologies like this that offer the speed, transparency, and robustness needed to beat fraud.
Similarly, businesses should also consider solutions, which are capable of analysing the social and digital footprints of potential customers at the point of sign-up. As we enter 2023, solutions of this nature are really starting to stand out in the field of online fraud prevention. To this end, it remains simply impossible for fraudsters to replicate the digital footprints of legitimate customers on grounds of costs.
By seizing on this phenomenon, solutions like SEON’s are able to effectively assess the risk of fraud before a potential customer has even signed up. Our solution utilises advanced data enrichment technology, to deliver real-time insights into every interaction, order, account, buyer, transaction, and opportunity. In fact, it does this by analysing over 50+ online platforms to help validate a person’s identity via one API call. What’s more, we now offer a forever free version of the solution, which is accessible to all online businesses.
Right now, it feels like we’re moving into a new digital era, where the blending of online and offline personalities is more pronounced and ultimately more complex. At the same time, there are new technologies emerging, which have the potential to make online fraud more difficult to spot. When mixed all together, this cocktail of issues presents serious fraud-related challenges to sectors like fintech, air travel, and the creator economy.
Sadly, nascent solutions like deep fakes and AI chatbots are making it much harder for people to authenticate themselves online very soon. We may quickly find ourselves in a world where it’s increasingly difficult to tell real and fake profiles apart. Unfortunately, we might begin to see the first signs of this in the next few years, so it’s important people are prepared. The good news is the tools to take on the challenge have never been more accessible.
Once again, the only way to defeat these forward-thinking systems is to utilise the power of true innovation yourself. The types, speed, and sophistication of fraud attacks are advancing all the time, but thankfully so are the tools used to defeat them. Through the power of AI and machine learning, solutions like SEON’s can handle masses of data at high speed and scale processing volumes of data, whilst learning and adapting to how different businesses evaluate risk and save costs on preventing fraud.
About Tamas Kadar
Tamas Kadar is a multi-award-winning young entrepreneur and a sought-after commentator on all things fraud and tech. This year alone, he has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, The FT, Tech Crunch, and Sifted (to name a few) talking about his business and fraud challenges of the tech world. The London-based entrepreneur has truly scaled SEON to be the go-to fraud prevention solution in the world, having built the tech and software from the ground up. He even led the company to receive the largest Series B rounds ever for a tech company, with the USD 94 million round led by Silicon Valley-based IVP.
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