The recent data breach and privacy events have been game-changers. In the first half of 2018 alone, 4.5 billion[1] data records were compromised worldwide. With more and more personal information swimming in the dark web, there is an abundant supply for fraudsters to work with, which is impacting customer-not-present transactions online and digital environments, in particular. There is little denying that more fraud is happening with increased sophistication and prevalence.
Our research found that 9 out of 10 companies believe recent breaches have adversely impacted their business operations in significant ways. Companies are experiencing higher fraud rates and risk, including more incidents of synthetic identity fraud, account takeovers, and other types.
Moreover, nearly 60% of businesses faced increases in fraud attempts this year – double the number who said it remained the same. Companies also don’t feel prepared to detect and deter fraud, especially the more sophisticated types such as synthetic identity fraud (SIF). In fact, about a third of companies feel unprepared to address SIF when compared to a quarter of responding companies in 2017.
Consumers are also being impacted by data breaches. We found that 57% of consumers feel an elevated level of concern about their personal information compared to what they felt last year. More than half are extremely/very concerned that their information has been exposed due to a data breach.
With all the dynamics and change events, businesses need to reconsider their traditional approaches to identity verification. Static ID proofing using credit bureau data is not enough and in fact, is practically negligent when aiming to protect businesses and consumers since such data is awash on the dark web.
