Online fraud detection spend is expected to reach $9.2 billion by 2020, up by 30%, as fraudsters target mobile transactions.
This is according to Juniper research report Online Payment Fraud: Key Vertical Strategies and Management 2016-2020', which notes e-commerce merchants and financial institutions will be investing heavily in online fraud detection solutions over the next five years.
The report says fraudsters now perceive mobile payment channels to be particularly vulnerable (and therefore attractive targets) as many organisations have yet to apply the same levels of protection to mobile as they have to desktop transactions.
In 2015, approximately 42% of all consumer e-commerce transactions were initiated from a mobile device in the US, according to the RSA Anti-Fraud Command Centre, says Juniper.
In the same year, the number of fraudulent transactions on mobile devices increased by 142% compared to 2014. However, Web-based fraud increased just 3% during the same period, it says.
In SA, the South African Bank Risk Information Centre (Sabric) recently warned bank customers to pay more attention to their mobile security.
As more bank consumers migrate to online banking platforms, the risk of smartphones and handheld devices being compromised has also amplified, says Sabric.
Tjaart van der Walt, Truteq Group CEO and international MD, says as more and more banks migrate banking services to mobile, enterprising and sophisticated (often globalised) criminal networks have devised ever-ingenious ways to use mobile phones to separate customers from their money.
A user's mobile identity has become a natural target for criminals because most banks today use their customers' mobile phone as another way (or 'second-factor') to identify and authorise credit card, ATM, point-of-sale or Internet banking transactions, he says.
"Digital security companies regard the mitigation of mobile fraud as a key revenue generator in the medium term," says research author Gareth Owen.
He notes that this was driving the development and implementation of advanced biometric authentication technologies which the companies claim can make mobile purchases as secure as any other Web-based transactions.
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