As Consumers’ Mobile Transactions Rise During Social Distancing Orders, Zumigo Uniquely Protects Users from Increasing Attacks, Including SIM Hijacking and SIM Swap Fraud Taking Over Accounts
Zumigo Corporation, a leader in mobile device identity verification, today announced it continues to provide security for consumers’ mobile banking and e-commerce transactions, increasingly important during these times of increased online use and social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a public service announcement issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last month, mobile banking practices are on the rise, leading to increased opportunity of cyber theft.
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“Studies of US financial data indicate a 50 percent surge in mobile banking since the beginning of 2020,” the FBI wrote in its June PSA. “Additionally, studies indicate 36 percent of Americans plan to use mobile tools to conduct banking activities, and 20 percent plan to visit branch locations less often. With city, state, and local governments urging or mandating social distancing, Americans have become more willing to use mobile banking as an alternative to physically visiting branch locations. The FBI expects cyber actors to attempt to exploit new mobile banking customers using a variety of techniques…”
As a leading mobile identity data provider, protecting more than 120 million consumers from bank account fraud, Zumigo has been working with the major US banks and e-commerce retailers for the past number of years to protect their customers and accounts by adding an extra layer of identity protection and verification through their mobile phone numbers. Zumigo’s identity verification solutions validate the true identity of the mobile user and their ownership of credit cards presented for online purchases, as well as bank account owner identities. Protecting the integrity of consumers’ mobile identities has become more important than ever during this time where consumers are asked to practice social distancing measures and are increasing their mobile financial activity.
Consumers are encouraged to enable two-factor authentication to secure their online accounts. The majority of two-factor authentication security codes are sent via SMS or voice one-time passwords (OTP) to mobile phones. This presents a security loophole subject to SIM hijacking and illegal mobile phone account porting by fraudsters to take over online banking and e-commerce accounts, where credit cards are often saved for future fraudulent purchases.
To protect against SIM hijacking or SIM swap fraud, Zumigo verifies for banks and merchants in real-time if it’s safe to communicate with their customers’ mobile phones during a transaction requiring user verification, or if there have been SIM or network changes to the users’ mobile phone account, making the transaction risky. Today Zumigo’s Assure Identity solution protects more than 120 million consumers from bank account takeover fraud, equating to more than 75 percent of US households.
“Preventing account takeover fraud is essential to every company to minimize fraud loss and damages to their company’s reputation, and this has been made more difficult during these times of heightened mobile transaction activity,” said Chirag Bakshi, Zumigo CEO and Founder. “Our banking and e-commerce clients, and those of our partners, are seeing an increasing surge in online fraud and account takeover attempts. Protecting consumer mobile identity is the core principle and business of Zumigo. Our customers turn to us because billions of dollars are at stake due to illegal money transfers or purchases from stolen banking account and e-commerce accounts.”
Over the past 5 years with the rise of online and mobile bank account access, Zumigo has detected more than 2.5 million occurrences of possible SIM hijacking or SIM swap events perpetrated by fraudsters. Zumigo’s Assure Identity Cloud Platform has flagged these events as possible fraudulent occurrences when banks checked with Zumigo prior to communicating with their users’ mobile devices, resulting in bank accounts being protected. Zumigo’s patented technology detects changes in SIM and mobile network indicators such as device, owner and account.
Zumigo’s global and identity SaaS platform is a cloud-based service that integrates with banks’ and merchants’ processing systems to verify users’ identity to prevent fraud. Discrepancies in mobile phone and account information are quickly flagged as possible fraud, saving Zumigo customers significant expenses from fraudulent takeover of accounts, account creation with stolen or synthetic IDs, and wire or other payment fraud.
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