E-commerce Attack Rates

E-commerce fraud attack rates hit record highs.

With 16.7 million reported victims of identity fraud in 2017 (that’s 6.64 percent of the U.S. population), it was another record year for the number of fraud victims. And, as online and mobile transaction growth continued to significantly outpace brick-and-mortar, criminal attacks also grew rapidly. This past year, we saw more than a 30 percent increase in e-commerce fraud attacks compared to 2016.

Experian^® analyzes e-commerce fraud attack rates biannually by both shipping and billing locations. Fraud attack rates show the attempted fraudulent e-commerce transactions against the population of overall e-commerce orders. Download the listing of Top 100 ZIP codes in the United States for 2017.

Heat map | 2017 e-commerce attack rates

The below map charts 2017 e-commerce attack rates (by basis points) in the United States by both shipping and billing locations. Fraud attack rates are calculated using bad transactions in relation to the total number of transactions. Attack rates are in basis points (bps). 1 basis point = 0.01%

For ease of interpretation, billing states are associated with suspected fraud victims (the address of the purchaser) and shipping states are associated with suspected fraudsters (the address where the purchased goods were sent).