The Problem of Digital Dormancy, and the Dangers of Holiday Shopping
Fraudsters will leverage every available vulnerability to commit content abuse, shipping fraud, identity theft, and more. This Week in Fraud Trends, November 29.
Our digital lives can be very complicated. So many accounts, so many passwords, so many platforms. There was a time when these complications were exaggerated; when our online behaviors were considered discretionary, and accordingly, frivolous. That time is long passed.
Today, we manage our healthcare online. We learn critical job skills online. We bank online. That’s only the beginning of a long list. Remember, this is a world where political leaders announce policy on social media — first. Is it any wonder we struggle to keep track of it all?
Feeling overwhelmed is understandable. Unfortunately, not keeping track of it all can lead to significant problems.
As CyberScoop reported earlier this year, dormant accounts represent a highly exploitable vulnerability to fraudsters, noting that “sixty-five percent of accounts that experience an account takeover attack — when an outsider logs in with a victim’s own username and password — have not been accessed by their true owner in more than 90 days, according to forthcoming research from DataVisor.”
Which brings us to some complicated news from THIS week. It began with an announcement from Twitter about their intention to remove dormant accounts from the platform, as reported on by The Verge:
In the article, Twitter’s statement is quoted:
“As part of our commitment to serve the public conversation, we’re working to clean up inactive accounts to present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter.”
From a fraud standpoint, this could have been seen as good news. But, the plot thickened shortly thereafter, as highlighted by Axios:
And of course, there was a new statement from Twitter:
“We’ve heard you on the impact that this would have on the accounts of the deceased. This was a miss on our part. We will not be removing any inactive accounts until we create a new way for people to memorialize accounts.”
So, for the time being, at least, those inactive accounts remain; many of them now highly visible — and desirable — targets for fraudsters.
Digital dormancy happens for many reasons. One of these is the fact that fraudsters like to move fast. When fraudsters create new fake accounts, they often use them almost immediately. DataVisor’s just-released Q3 2019 Fraud Index Report finds the following:
As we enter full throttle into the holiday shopping season, the problems of fake accounts and content abuse loom large. However, as reported this week by Digital Commerce 360, those are just two of the many reasons why we need to be vigilant:
“Increases in online shopping, an expanded array of promotional activity, and intensified shipping volumes all combine to create fertile ground for fraud and abuse, and post-holiday sales cycles will be just as vulnerable as mid-season ones, so short-term fixes will not suffice.”
Along with all the sweaters, bestselling books, and humorous drink mugs, we also pay for a great many events during the holidays, and the ticketing space is accordingly a busy one — for customers and fraudsters alike. So you can add ticketing fraud to the list of things to be worried about, along with ongoing holiday concerns such as shipping fraud.
PYMNTS has the whole story this week:
For businesses, much of the challenge has to do with managing data effectively. DataVisor VP Priya Rajan was at MoneyLive in London this week, participating in a panel focused on creating data-centric organizations:
As noted by the team at Target Group (fellow event attendees), the balance of customer experience and risk was a key conference topic:
This gets us to the heart of the holiday shopping challenge. Businesses want happy customers, but how much risk can they take on in order to achieve those seamless experiences?
Join us next week for another edition of This Week in Fraud Trends. We’ll dissect all the Black Friday news, and also start looking ahead to 2020.
