ThreatMetrix analyzed transactions from top organizations across industries. Trends observed represented key market trends:

The detection and prevention of 210 million attacks in real time; a 62% increase over the previous year. In addition, the risk landscape has heightened: attack growth outpaced transaction growth by 83% in comparison to the first quarter in 2016.
This quarter has seen a proliferation of attacks on the e-commerce industry, with transactions in that sector 10 times riskier than those in financial services. "Cybercriminals see eCommerce as a growing target," said the study.
Organized bot attacks continue to proliferate, with a record 1 billion bot attacks, predominantly targeting e-commerce merchants seen in the first quarter, 100 million of which were from mobile devices.
Just over half of transactions in the ThreatMetrix network come from mobile devices (55% for financial institutions), a 170% increase compared to the first quarter of 2015.
Sixty percent of all account creations originate from a mobile device, indicating its increased role as the key enabler across the entire customer journey.
Many consumers still perform large, complicated actions across a range of devices, indicating the need for businesses to look beyond device intelligence to verify identity and authenticate transactions.
The anatomy of bot attacks continues to shift and morph; transactions from several new and emerging economies such as Vietnam, Egypt, South Korea, Ecuador and Ukraine are very likely to be bots, and contribute significantly to the overall bot volumes seen globally.

The report acknowledged, "Cybercrime is now an industry unto itself; and its lifeblood is data. Data is, unfortunately, becoming easier to steal and monetize for cybercriminals. Billions of online users are generating huge swathes of data and, as we have seen recently." The study added in many cases users relinquish data oblivious to who sees it and how entities use it. "Stolen data gives the faceless cybercriminal a fraudulent mask, an identity, which can be used to open or takeover user accounts or make bad payments with stolen credit card data. This is making it increasingly difficult for organizations to separate the good from the bad."

Instant Insights /

210 Million Global Fraud Attacks Detected During 2018's First Quarter

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