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Tales from the Dark Web

Published: May 25, 2016 by Guest Contributor

Dark Web

Last week we had the pleasure of joining more than 400 clients at the 35th annual Vision Conference — connecting business leaders to ideas and solutions. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing some insights from our fraud and identity dedicated session track.

I had the pleasure of presenting alongside the U.S. Secret Service, and we had a packed session to discuss the Dark Web — what it is, how it’s accessed, how criminals are exploiting it to commit fraud and the human impact of the massive global cybercrime problem. According to McAfee®, cybercrime represents a $500 billion cost to the global economy — and that’s projected to rise to $600 billion this year, outpacing any other form of crime. With the Internet economy generating between $2 trillion and $3 trillion annually, that means cybercrime is extracting roughly 15 to 20 percent of the entire value created by the Internet. This is a massive problem, and it’s not going away.

Unfortunately, there are countless tools and services to commit fraud available on the Web, providing attackers with the cloak of anonymity they need to compromise accounts, mimic legitimate users and submit fraudulent transactions. Device intelligence helps unmask these activities. It is a critical component to defend against the threat, and it provides insight into every interaction throughout a typical customer journey (from account setup to login and account maintenance to transactions). Without this visibility into users’ historical behavior and typical population patterns, organizations often have limited options to target attackers and identify anomalous behaviors. This is key to a successful cybercrime detection and mitigation strategy.

Another important point in the session regarded recent law enforcement and private industry successes in identifying, tracking, apprehending and prosecuting online attackers. We thankfully have made significant strides in this area, as evidenced by the work of the Secret Service and other law enforcement organizations, but the collaboration must continue — and intensify. As mentioned in a CNBC story published on the same day as our presentation, the Dark Web is an increasingly mainstream source for everything from financial crime to drug trade and human trafficking. Unfortunately, most businesses are in the dark about the growing criminal underground, but Experian can help. With proper fraud expertise and innovative tools to defend against these ever-evolving threats, organizations can uncloak the attackers and safeguard the business.

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In today’s digital lending landscape, fraudsters are more sophisticated, coordinated, and relentless than ever. For companies like Terrace Finance — a specialty finance platform connecting over 5,000 merchants, consumers, and lenders — effectively staying ahead of these threats is a major competitive advantage. That is why Terrace Finance partnered with NeuroID, a part of Experian, to bring behavioral analytics into their fraud prevention strategy. It has given Terrace’s team a proactive, real-time defense that is transforming how they detect and respond to attacks — potentially stopping fraud before it ever reaches their lending partners. The challenge: Sophisticated fraud in a high-stakes ecosystem Terrace Finance operates in a complex environment, offering financing across a wide range of industries and credit profiles. With applications flowing in from countless channels, the risk of fraud is ever-present. A single fraudulent transaction can damage lender relationships or even cut off financing access for entire merchant groups. According to CEO Andy Hopkins, protecting its partners is a top priority for Terrace:“We know that each individual fraud attack can be very costly for merchants, and some merchants will get shut off from their lending partners because fraud was let through ... It is necessary in this business to keep fraud at a tolerable level, with the ultimate goal to eliminate it entirely.” Prior to NeuroID, Terrace was confident in its ability to validate submitted data. But with concerns about GenAI-powered fraud growing, including the threat of next-generation fraud bots, Terrace sought out a solution that could provide visibility into how data was being entered and detect risk before applications are submitted. The solution: Behavioral analytics from NeuroID via Experian After integrating NeuroID through Experian’s orchestration platform, Terrace gained access to real-time behavioral signals that detected fraud before data was even submitted. Just hours after Terrace turned NeuroID on, behavioral signals revealed a major attack in progress — NeuroID enabled Terrace to respond faster than ever and reduce risk immediately. “Going live was my most nerve-wracking day. We knew we would see data that we have never seen before and sure enough, we were right in the middle of an attack,” Hopkins said. “We thought the fraud was a little more generic and a little more spread out. What we found was much more coordinated activities, but this also meant we could bring more surgical solutions to the problem instead of broad strokes.” Terrace has seen significant results with NeuroID in place, including: Together, NeuroID and Experian enabled Terrace to build a layered, intelligent fraud defense that adapts in real time. A partnership built on innovation Terrace Finance’s success is a testament to what is  possible when forward-thinking companies partner with innovative technology providers. With Experian’s fraud analytics and NeuroID’s behavioral intelligence, they have built a fraud prevention strategy that is proactive, precise, and scalable. And they are not stopping there. Terrace is now working with Experian to explore additional tools and insights across the ecosystem, continuing to refine their fraud defenses and deliver the best possible experience for genuine users. “We use the analogy of a stream,” Hopkins explained. “Rocks block the flow, and as you remove them, it flows better. But that means smaller rocks are now exposed. We can repeat these improvements until the water flows smoothly.” Learn more about Terrace Finance and NeuroID Want more of the story? Read the full case study to explore how behavioral analytics provided immediate and long-term value to Terrace Finance’s innovative fraud prevention strategy. Read case study

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