Published: January 18, 2018
Reading time: 4 minute read
Written by: Kayla Parker

As we ring in the New Year and look forward to the incredible developments 2018 will bring, let’s take a look back at the best-of 2017 for Forter and our customers.

Stronger Together

In 2017, Forter’s transaction volume sextupled(!), that’s right – we saw 6 times as many transactions, which means that all of our merchants benefited from our increased network and community. Forter’s scale now makes it larger than any merchant outside of Amazon.

Our Forter network now includes over 1 billion recognized devices and 100 million people, spanning 188 countries. With access to more devices and data worldwide, 2017 has been a year of substantial growth for Forter, recognizing and monitoring tens of thousands of fraudsters and fraud rings from around the world. At the same time, Forter’s system has ensured smooth, seamless shopping for millions of good consumers who were not impeded by online fraud prevention in any way.

Holiday Shopping, Without the Delays

During Thanksgiving week, when customers find abundant sales and deals on their favorite retail sites, Forter ensured that its clients could handle the uptick in consumer activity without an increase in fraud prevention friction, processing over $1.1B of transactions in real time.

On Cyber Monday alone, some of Forter’s retailers experienced transaction spikes of between 150% to 3000%, relying completely on Forter’s fully automated, scalable solution to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience. Forter’s system worked without pause, providing instant decisions for every order, and giving customers the smoothest possible shopping experience, from sign-in to checkout.

2017: A Year of Fraud Attacks in Many Forms

As the Forter network grows, so does the number of fraudulent activities identified by the system. (You can see our 2016 highlights here!) Our system now has registered over 1 million fraudulent attacks this year alone. (1.19 million, if you’d like to be more precise, and if you know us, we certainly do!). For those inquiring minds interested in seeing the breakdown of all of the data, check out our latest Fraud Attack Index.

Fraudsters are targeting the pain points of retailers and exploiting them, with a whopping 66% increase in attacks by repeat offenders in 2017 alone.

The Year of Bitcoin

You’ve heard about it, your mom’s best friend has read about it, and now your friends are asking you if you’re buying them. These last few months have been all about Bitcoin. While cryptocurrencies themselves predate the recent buzz in the financial world (and have been the preferred payment method used by fraudsters between themselves for years now), Forter saw more than 10K Bitcoin attacks in the last two months alone.

This spike in activity underscores both the increased popularity of Bitcoin and the very real risks and vulnerabilities associated with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. We expect that these kinds of attacks will be a continuing trend into the early months of 2018.

“It Wasn’t Me”

While Shaggy may have made this statement famous, online fraudsters are making it infamous. Time and again, customers of retailers around the world fall prey to Account Takeovers (ATOs). ATO attacks have grown substantially in the last year, exemplifying the vulnerability of large and sensitive data breaches. ATO in its most common form is when a fraudster hacks into a customer’s account on the merchant’s website (thus passing as a returning customer). ATO is not a new problem, but it is a rampant and an ever-growing one. In 2017 alone, Forter saw more than 100K ATO attempts, and half of the affected accounts were attacked by more than one fraudster.

99 Problems and Fraud is… All of Them

ATOs will continue to be a pressing fraud and security concern, and the capabilities of online criminals advance as the e-commerce market expands. The idea of fraudsters “peeking” into accounts to see if the contents are worth their while, and then subsequently exploiting these breached accounts in various ways (including exposing the details to other criminals), has become a far more common practice.

Policy abusers have also been on the rise. Forter saw more than 200K policy abusers in 2017, with repeat offenders attempting to conceal their identities and strike again. Policy abuse, which includes cheating with coupons and discount codes or overuse of refer-a-friend reward programs, has become an increasingly common type of fraud throughout the e-commerce ecosystem.

Often such abuses are not protected against by standard fraud policies or departments, or are not protected in a sophisticated way. This allows even the least tech-savvy individuals an opportunity to exploit a retailer’s system. Fraud has become more accessible to the masses, rather than just for professional criminals, which means that we need solutions in place to identify and stop fraud well before an individual reaches checkout.

End-to-End Coverage

End-to-End (E2E) coverage of a retailer’s platform is the wave of the future for Forter’s customers. Forter always runs behind the scenes on our retailer’s platforms, interpreting complicated and immense data to ensure we can stand by our 100% fraud chargeback guarantee.

With Forter’s E2E coverage, our customers will feel more secure, knowing that their platforms are protected throughout the customer lifecycle. Forter offers protection not just at checkout but throughout, from the moment a potential customer logs onto a site, alters or adds account details, enters a coupon code, or checks just how many loyalty points they have in their account.

Plus, our award-winning Customer Service Support feature, which launched in 2017, uses proprietary technology to empower customers to contribute to the accuracy of Forter’s machine learning system. We’re honored to have been recently recognized for this accomplishment with a 2018 Stevie Award for  “Best Use of Technology in Customer Service.”

Every step of the way, Forter will be there.

Interested in seeing what Forter’s E2E capabilities can do for you in 2018?

4 minute read