Online fraud comes in all shapes and sizes.

 

For example, a massage therapist, Jason Clarke, fell victim to an online scam after clicking on a hyperlink he believed to be from Bybit in which he invested.

 

By the time he realised that something was not right, the perpetrators had already withdrawn a $40,000 worth house deposit.

 

In another recent fraudulent case, a BNZ customer revealed that, after clicking on a link from their bank and logging sensitive information, the cybercriminal obtained the password and wired as much as $41,000 (complete savings).

 

Olympic champion Usain Bolt has also been the victim of a scam that drained his pension account – cutting it from 12 million to $12,000.

 

The truth of the matter is scams can drain anyone’s life savings.

 

How can companies protect their users and employees from fraudulent activity?

 

What are some of the most effective online fraud prevention practices that individuals and businesses can apply to protect their critical assets?

Best Fraud Prevention Practices For Individuals

On the individual level, users can:

-  Learn about the signs of scams

-  Strengthen passwords (and not reveal them to anyone)

-  Install antivirus software and firewalls on their devices

-  Refrain from revealing personal information via social media, email, text, or phone call – regardless of who might be asking

 

Some dead giveaways of online fraud attempts are emails that seem too good to be true, require action right away, ask for private information, or have an attached link that leads to a website that asks to fill in your information (as password) or log in.

 

Your password should also be strong – unique for every account, having over nine versatile characters (a combination of random numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols), and changed every 3-6 months.

 

Another common thing about scams is that they impersonate an authority figure or institution that the person trusts – such as a bank, police, government, or the managers within their corporation.

 

Never follow such links or reveal compromising information, even if they’re from the channel you normally use to communicate with your bank or employer.

 

A firewall filters traffic and blocks access to websites that the software recognizes as unsafe for users.

 

When a person mistakes a website for a trustworthy one and accidentally downloads a virus on the device or malware finds its way to a USB device, antivirus protection and antimalware are essential for detecting it and removing it from the computer.

Automated Online Fraud Prevention For Businesses

Organizations, on the other hand, require a more nuanced and technical approach to the detection of malicious activity. Both their users and employees trust them with a lot of data that can be used for identity fraud if it's leaked or other criminal activity.

 

Also, a high volume of information is stored in the cloud and it needs to be managed to prevent breaches. Data management requires knowing where the data is at all times and that it is not at risk of being stolen in the cloud environment.

 

The information should be compliant with the latest privacy policies such as GDPR.

 

Besides rigorous information management and protection, what can businesses do to prevent scams?

 

The best online fraud prevention techniques for companies include:

?   Account takeover prevention

?   Sophisticated bot protection

?   Website supply chain attack security

 

Let’s break them down.

Preventing Account Takeover

In cybersecurity, account takeover prevention refers to the solution that runs round the clock with the purpose of uncovering any unusual behaviours that could indicate that a malicious actor has gotten access to a user’s account.

 

Cybercriminals can obtain the credentials in data dumps or guess passwords that are easily hackable.

 

They also use automated tools that guess and attempt to get unauthorized access to versatile accounts.

 

Account takeover prevention is the tool that identifies such attempts early – before a criminal wires money or gets deeper access into the systems of a company where the sensitive data is being stored.

Deploying Advanced Bot Protection

Traffic from malicious bots can do major damage to businesses – they can lead to an account takeover or overwhelm the website with false user activity.

 

The automated solution that can detect bad bot traffic and automated bot attacks by tracking the network and looking for signs of anomalies can save a company a lot of money.

 

However, the detection of undesirable traffic has to be done by a solution that can differentiate legitimate from malicious traffic and real from fake user activity.

Securing Against Website Supply Chain Attacks

Supply chain attacks on the website include digital skimming and form jacking and they can lead to client-side online frauds.

 

Solutions that can detect the traces of injected malicious code that would lead to such a cyberattack are integral parts of websites and identity theft security nowadays.

 

For instance, the automated security solution could register that the sensitive information is being transferred somewhere else and it can alert cyber professionals of such activity.

Nipping Online Frauds in a Bud

In the best-case scenario, internet scams should be prevented. However, with more sophisticated types, that is not always possible.

 

When threat actors attempt internet fraud, they rely on human biases and trust in authority figures.

 

For instance, they know that many people don’t question requests in emails that are sent from their bosses and trust emails that are from their bank.

 

To protect themselves personally, an individual can set up a strong password and avoid clicking the links in the body of emails that require logging in or sending personal information.

 

Organizations can help their users and employees by investing in solutions that automate the discovery of suspicious behavior and employ advanced techniques for online fraud prevention.

 

The bottom line is, the sooner a company or a person can identify online fraud attempts or malicious activity within the system, the faster they can react to mitigate the problem.