You've shored up your fraud defenses when it comes to screening new members, but no product or process is 100 percent “fraud-proof.” So why and how should you protect yourself from the ones that get through your process?

These days, there are myriad ways for criminals to steal someone's identity: malware, phishing, smishing, social engineering and even old-fashioned dumpster diving, to name but a few. Even the best fraud protection systems find it a challenge to catch fraud at acquisition when the criminal has all of the victim's personal details or, even worse, a copy of the victim's credit report.

Although fraud investment and operational focus at the point of application are relatively high, the recent FFIEC Supplement to Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment pointed out that, since 2005, there have been significant changes in the threat landscape for financial institutions. In addition, with the greater threats come concerns that the customer authentication methods and controls implemented in compliance with the FFIEC's original guidance from 2005 have become less effective.