Batten down the hatches, because online crooks are making one final fraudulent push before the seasonal holidays; warns SEON.
Leveraging its own insights, fraud fighter SEON believes more fraud attempts will be made during the weeks running up to Christmas than at any other time this year.
During the same period last year, SEON declined 100,000 transactions per day for e-commerce, i-gaming and online loan sector merchants.
Because of this, the company anticipates the same trend in 2022, as fraudsters look to capitalise on heightened seasonal spending.
However, unlike Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which see particularly big increases in fraud attempts targeted at e-commerce merchants, the data suggests that online Christmas crooks will have their sights set on defrauding i-gaming providers.
This forecast is largely placed in the demonstrated rise of i-gaming services and in recognition of post office industrial action hindering distribution times.
This change in target seems to also influence the methods that fraudsters use during this period. Unlike the fake account methods used on Black Friday, SEON’s system indicates a substantial rise in suspicious web browser profiles.
In practice, this means user accounts with suspiciously old browser versions or ones that demonstrate behaviours associated with online bots.
Don’t let fraudsters steal Christmas
“The run-up to the holidays is busy for everyone, including online fraudsters,” says Tamas Kadar, CEO and co-founder of SEON.
“Any business expecting a holiday from this threat will be disappointed by our research. It’s clear that the week of 12 December will be the busiest week for online fraud attempts this year.”
Recently, SEON, which has just launched a ‘forever free’ version of its online fraud prevention solution, warned online businesses about the fraud risks associated with Cyber Monday.
Recent TransUnion and BigCommerce reports support SEON’s predictions, highlighting the significant increase in online fraud attempts during this period.
