Card Fraud Trends: Mobile Devices Driving CNP, Account Fraud

Posted by Anna Kragie on May 24, 2019 1:36:33 PM

Industry data from the first quarter of the year shows what many financial institution leaders probably fear: CNP and mobile fraud are still rising rapidly.

As we covered in our 2019 Card Fraud Trends webinar, mobile fraud has increased by 600% over the last 3 years. As fraudsters find new avenues to target, fraud trends will continue to shift and financial institutions will have evolving issues to manage as they craft their annual revenue and customer impact goals. 

Data from RSA Security indicates Q1 fraud attacks involving rogue mobile applications jumped nearly 300%, while fraudulent CNP transactions jumped 17%. Within those incidents, 56% of the fraudulent transactions originated from mobile devices. Fraud attacks from "rogue mobile applications" increased 300% — up from 10,390 rogue apps in Q4 to 41,313 in Q1 of 2019. And that's just those they track — showing just a slice of the whole picture.

CNP fraud transactions continue to top the list of concerns for financial institutions, and the latest industry data demonstrates why organizations continue to work to tackle this rapidly-growing problem. 

"The average value of a CNP fraud transaction in the U.S. was $403, nearly double that of an average genuine transaction of $213," the report concluded. "The average value of a fraudulent transaction will likely always be higher than that of a genuine transaction, since fraudsters regularly use stolen credit cards to make quick, high-value purchases because these goods are easy to resell for a profit. There are, however, insights to be gained in the differences between the spending levels related to genuine and fraud transactions." 

Account takeover was another rising trend highlighted in the report: “Sixty percent of fraud transaction value originated from a new device but trusted account indicating account takeover activity continues to be a preferred and successful attack vector for cybercriminals.” 

White fraudsters used to target eCommerce sites with a compromised card, the latest data shows that account takeover is an increasingly common tactic as fraudsters believe this leads to less of a chance that the transaction will be flagged as fraudulent. In fact, selling compromised account details appears to be the new credit card fraud.

“Another manifestation of this shift towards account takeover is the growing popularity of account stores. Similar to credit card stores, they are fully automated websites that enable fraudsters to purchase compromised accounts.,” the report concluded. 

Read the entire report here.

 


ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

STATE OF CARD FRAUD 2019: HOW DOES YOUR BANK STACK UP? Rippleshot Co-Founder Canh Tran dives into what happened in 2018, how this is shaping the first quarter fraud trends for 2019 and what we predict is going to shape the rest of the year. This webinar, which aired on Thursday, May 2, is now available. Topics covered include: What Banks are Concerned About Most, emerging trends, preliminary fraud benchmarks , assessing readiness guidelines, internal checklist for banks 

2018 STATE OF CARD FRAUD | Learn how much card fraud is costing FIs, and our own curated benchmark insights into what others in the industry fear most when it comes to managing card fraud, reissuance costs and customer impact. 

INSIDE SYNTHETIC FRAUD: A DEEP DIVE | What exactly is synthetic fraud — and why is it becoming such a costly headache for financial institutions? Financial institutions are finding it increasingly harder to crack down, and a rise in data breaches is only going to make the problem worse before it gets better. Catch the latest synthetic fraud data and what the experts are saying on the subject..