As the Internet and its capabilities continue to grow, so do the opportunities for the bad guys.

Cybercrime and online fraud have become an unwelcome regular presence in our digital age. A study by IID, a provider of products and services intended to protect against cyber attacks, predicts new forms of cybercrime in the near future, such as using the Internet to execute a murder and using NFC-enabled devices to steal information about an individual’s bank account, taking his or her money.

NFC-enabled devices allow features such as remote payments and the automatic exchange of peer-to-peer information between two devices fairly close to each other. Despite the fact that the technology used in NFC is secure, there will nonetheless be opportunities for security breaches.

ThreatMetrix is a company that combines advanced device identification and malware detection in a single platform backed by a global network of shared intelligence. Delivered from the cloud, the ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Defender Platform helps businesses protect the integrity of online transactions, accounts and identities with layered and integrated defenses.

In its recent ThreatMetrix 2012 State of Cybercrime study, the company found that 93 percent of financial institutions consider online fraud prevention a high priority. However, most only have baseline IT security tools in place, with the top five tools being internal firewall, gateway and anti-virus/malware, gateway firewall, intrusion detection/prevention and security management systems.

“Fraudsters go where the money is, making financial institutions a prime target for cybercriminals,” said Andreas Baumhof, chief technology officer, ThreatMetrix.  “As more transactions move online, company and customer data at financial institutions are put at high risk of being compromised. Baseline cybersecurity is not effective enough to ward off fraudsters – financial institutions need an integrated device identification and malware protection solution in place to protect themselves and their customers.”

In 2011, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) regulated financial institutions to implement a layered security approach and identified two key techniques for financial institutions to maintain effective fraud controls – complex device identification and the ability to detect emerging malware threats.

ThreatMetrix’s study anticipates that by 2014, all financial service organizations will implement IT security systems because of regulations issued by the FFIEC.

The FFIEC recommends that an institution’s security program include device identification strategies that are more sophisticated than the simple cookie or IP address schemes used by many banks today as part of their authentication process. More complex techniques involve assessing larger sets of attributes and applying both pattern recognition algorithms and pattern-learning processes for device identification and recognition.

Moreover, any system that's going to be used effectively in today's Internet environment needs to be adept at recognizing a wide variety of devices, from older PCs to the latest Android (News - Alert) tablets.

According to ThreatMetrix, fraud prevention isn’t the only area financial institutions must be aware of. Following an attack or security breach, only 22 percent of financial institutions have made significant changes to IT security systems and policies and 23 percent indicated the organization continued operations as normal.

“Financial institutions should not take cyberattacks lightly,” continued Baumhof.  “Just because they have already been attacked does not mean it won’t happen again. Once a weak link is exposed, fraudsters will come back for more. Therefore, financial services must always put stringent cybersecurity policies in place before fraudsters even have the opportunity to attack.”

ThreatMetrix offers device identification solutions, malware detection solutions and its ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Defender platform to ensure cyber security and fraud prevention. To learn more, click here. 

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