What high-value digital commerce can teach you about fraud prevention

Digital fraud is no longer an occasional event, but has become part of the daily routine of e-commerce.Nethone data shows that suspected fraud attempts remained above 400 million in January and February, indicating that fraudsters continue to target users even when the volume of returns, refunds and complaints is at its peak, making detection even more challenging.

The main focus of these actions is high-value digital commerce, such as e-commerce stores that sell high-priced products and companies in the airline ticket industry. These businesses, because they are more attractive to criminals, are forced to innovate faster than others, becoming laboratories for the latest fraud detection technologies.

What makes a transaction high risk (so-called “high-risk business”) is the association with high value operations, immediate liquidity or large volume.We are talking about:

E-commerce platforms for expensive items such as electronics and premium brand marketplaces that handle products easily resold in the informal market;

Online games and betting, which allow quick movement and multiplication of resources;

Tourism and airline tickets, with high average transaction values and immediate resale potential;

Cryptocurrencies and digital assets, which enable transactions marked by anonymity, liquidity and absence of borders;

Fintech services, where account opening and customer interactions are vulnerable to social engineering and account takeover scams.

Companies with this profile face sophisticated threats on a daily basis, which forces them to raise their security standards and continuously innovate. Those outside this group should pay close attention, because the risks faced by these businesses today tend to spread throughout the market in a short time.

The problems of traditional prevention approaches

The classic response to fraud is blocking based on registration data and transaction history.This is a static model, with clear limitations, such as excessive blocking, which increases the number of false positives and leads to the loss of legitimate customers.In addition, the traditional model does not keep up with the dynamism of attacks, and sophisticated fraudsters already know how to manipulate static data, such as document numbers, addresses and cloned cards.

In the end, blocking too much costs sales; blocking too little generates financial losses. That is why it is so important to include other elements in the equation, such as behavioral analysis. This is already a learning of high-risk sectors, which no longer limit their evaluations to what the user reports, but also analyze how he behaves online.

Some behavioral metrics that have been successfully applied include:

Speed and typing pattern;

Geolocation and discrepancies with billing address;

Use of VPNs or device emulators;

Navigation flow (time on pages, repeated attempts, click paths).

Fraudsters can obtain cadastral data, but it is much harder to consistently replicate a legitimate behavioral pattern.

Artificial intelligence on the front line

The main lesson high-value digital commerce can teach about fraud prevention is that it is never static: it is an ongoing process that requires constant updates in response to evolving criminal techniques.

Every e-commerce, even the lowest risk, should be inspired by this dynamic ecosystem and adopt a proactive stance, since reputation, cash flow and customer relationships depend on the ability to detect and block threats.

The massive use of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables the detection of anomalies in real time, something essential in sectors where decisions need to be made instantly.In addition, these systems have continuous learning capabilities & MODELS improve as they identify new attack vectors, providing faster and more effective responses to emerging behaviors.

AI has not yet completely replaced human analytics, but it powers anti-fraud teams by automating massive volumes of attempts, creating a combination that makes defenses much more robust.

What all industries need to understand (and fast)

Investments and security strategies of high-risk sectors should be treated as a reference for the entire market. After all, technological evolution happens on both sides & defrauders & IDF and what is being tested today in highly targeted sectors can spread to others very soon.

As the data shows, fraud is increasingly dynamic, no longer restricted to key dates in the business calendar, and it is a mistake to treat it as a “IT IT team issue”.

In practice, this means that bolstering defenses just in November, before Black Friday, is not enough. Even for moderate risk sectors, the way is to prioritize investment in behavioral technology and AI.

Those who closely follow how high-risk sectors deal with fraud are better prepared for the challenges that already knock on the door of the market as a whole 'WHEEL fraud prevention is a business strategy, not just a defense measure.

By Thiago Bertacchini, Head of Sales at Nethone