Last Updated on March 24, 2023 by hassan abbas
Account takeover is among the most prevalent fraud risks where criminals steal Personally Identifiable Information (PII). This helps fraudsters steer clear of the identification process and avail unauthorized access to customers’ accounts. This form of identity theft resulted in a loss of over $11.4 billion. Businesses lacking adequate biometric screening solutions are more prone to this risk.
Businesses encountering Account Takeover Fraud (ATO) suffer financial losses and drive reputational damages. Therefore, industries require efficient biometric ID verification solutions to restrict fraudsters’ access and ensure a positive customer experience. While criminals deploy various techniques to take over legit customers’ accounts AI-powered services go otherwise. This blog covers ways criminals use to perform malicious activities and how biometric recognition solutions help combat them.
Biometric Identity Verification – Outlining Methods Used for Account Takeover
Criminals steal information such as name, date of birth, social security number, passwords, and others to commit ATO. In case they succeed, it becomes easier for them to make illegitimate payments, place orders, or apply for medical benefits by using someone else’s name. Where it exposes legit customers to deprivation of their rights, ATO also drives reputational loss and legal repercussions for the respective industry.
Industries are making efforts to restrict fraudsters’ access and provide customers with risk-free operations. In order to make digital onboarding more secure, businesses require better biometric security solutions. However, criminals are sophisticated enough and deploy various methods to take over accounts of legit users. Details regarding techniques fraudsters use to escape biometric recognition and gain unauthorized access are in the next section;
- Stuffing of Combinations
Criminals often find details regarding a customer in a large data dumpster. They then use credential stuffing attacks to try various password combinations and gain unauthorized access. Fraudsters use this technique to target platforms that lack biometric screening, easily dodge the identity verification process, and take over accounts.
- Bot Attacks
Criminals also use bot attacks, which is an advanced form of hacking, to conduct high-volume brute force attacks on a particular platform. These bots are hard to identify and easily dodge biometric recognition. In this process, criminals target thousands of IP addresses and take over a huge number of accounts without coming under the radar of suspiciousness detection.
- Buying Stolen Information
Stealing information of legit users through hacking attempts is the most common type of crime. Criminals then sell credentials on the dark web for huge amounts of money. Sophisticated hacking attempts go undetected by biometric security systems as fraudsters take lesser time to flee. The availability of this confidential information makes it easier for criminals to commit ATO.
- Phishing Attacks
These types of scams are also one of the most common fraud attacks. Criminals dodge biometric identity verification and impersonate banking officers, trading platforms’ representatives, or any other professional entity. They then ask the customers to share confidential information for security reasons.
Upon sharing, fraudsters use those details to commit ATO and use the particular account for malicious activities. For instance, criminals can plan organized terrorist attacks under someone else’s name. However, biometric recognition can place necessary precautions in fraudsters’ way to limit their unauthorized access.
- Social Engineering Fraud
During this type of attack, fraudsters critically go through social media sites, unprotected databases, and other open platforms. They copy scattered details and use them to make a password for illegitimately accessing accounts.
Biometric screening solutions however provide Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) that minimizes chances of social engineering fraud. AI-powered digital onboarding solutions place authentic and strict identification checks that limit risks of ATO.
Biometric User Authentication – Prevention Against Criminal Attempts
By integrating efficient biometric user authentication, industries can limit their exposure to ATO. AI-powered solutions leverage various authenticity checks including real-time selfie identification, MFA, liveness detection, and much more to assure user accessing the account is present at time of onboarding. On the contrary, criminals are also deploying various techniques to bypass biometric security checks and trap customers or hack into their accounts.
After gaining illegitimate access, fraudsters use accounts to pay for products, apply for governmental benefits, make transactions, or exploit the reputation of a particular industry. In order to secure their operations against ATO, businesses require online biometric ID card and other identity verification solutions.
In Summation
Biometric user authentication solutions help businesses not only prevent identity theft and stay put with regulatory standards but also keep the security of customers intact. By using liveness detection, MFA, facial feature verification, and several other checks, AI-powered services help industries safeguard user accounts in a better way. Biometric screening solutions serve as a substitute for OTPs and hackable passwords. Criminals can not fake their backgrounds or facial features which makes it easier for businesses to combat account takeover fraud and maintain higher levels of security for customers.
