iovation Stopped 50 Million Online Fraud Attempts in 2011, Biggest International Offender: Ghana

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--iovation, the Device Reputation Authority™ protecting online businesses from fraud and abuse, today announced a record year in preventing online fraud, and that transactions originating from the country of Ghana are most likely to correlate to fraud. Overall, the company stopped 50 million fraud attempts in 2011, and is at a current pace of 150,000 fraudulent transactions per day. iovation identified these fraud attempts using its patented ReputationManager 360 solution, which tracks more than 800 million devices across a broad range of industries and has protected more than 6.5 billion total online transactions to date.

“We see proof everyday that cyber fraud knows no boundaries—crossing borders, devices and industries at will which makes it all the more important to share data and about truly global device activity.”

“Although Ghana topped our list, online fraud is a global problem,” said Greg Pierson, founder and CEO of iovation. “We see proof everyday that cyber fraud knows no boundaries—crossing borders, devices and industries at will which makes it all the more important to share data and about truly global device activity.”

According to iovation, the top five countries showing the most fraud in 2011 (as a percentage of the transactions originating in that country) were:

Ghana
Nigeria
The Philippines
China
Israel

iovation also detected a 400 percent increase in fraud via mobile devices last year. Although these devices represent only 4 percent of the overall fraud total, this dramatic increase mirrors general growth trends for mobile usage, and indicates that recognizing and stopping fraud will only become more challenging.

iovation’s key 2011 findings and milestones include:

Total unique devices, including computers, tablets and mobile phones, in iovation’s shared database grew by 71 percent to 800 million, and 33 percent of known bad devices have been actively seen by iovation for more than 12 months.
Companies contributing data and relying on iovation’s ReputationManager 360 grew 38 percent to 200, with customers spanning from the most recognizable Fortune 500 enterprises to medium-sized companies in industries like financial services, retail, logistics, travel, dating, social networking and gaming/gambling.
iovation expanded European operations, opened an additional data center and grew U.S. engineering staff by almost 30 percent to address the growth in customers.
Enhancements to its industry-leading ReputationManager 360 solution include improvements in device recognition, user experience, real-time services and infrastructure. ReputationManager 360 was recognized with 16 awards in 2011, named visionary in Gartner Group’s 2011 Magic Quadrant, and won the 2011 Fraud and Compliance Solution of the Year by EGR Magazine.

Companies make real-time queries to iovation’s knowledge base of 800 million devices to prevent fraud loss and protect their customers. By utilizing this shared information, iovation is able to stop known offenders and predict whether or not new devices will be used to commit fraud. Combating this online fraud and abuse is no easy task and iovation doesn’t do it alone; more than 2,000 fraud analysts report and share fraud experiences through iovation’s database of Internet devices and relationships.

About iovation

iovation, protects online businesses and their end users against fraud and abuse through our industry-leading combination of shared device reputation and real-time risk evaluation. 2,000 fraud managers around the globe leverage iovation’s database of Internet devices and relationships between them to determine the level of risk associated with any type of online transaction. Retail, financial services, social network, gaming and other companies make real-time queries to iovation’s knowledge base of 800 million devices from every country in the world. Every day, iovation stops over 150,000 fraud attempts. For more information, visit www.iovation.com.