The "F" Word - Visibility into Fraudulent Online Behavior

It used to be that I couldn't say the "F"(Fraud)' word, but now that it's front and center on our web site as a value proposition, my fingers are allowed to type freely.

Seriously, I've had a lot of interesting conversations with our customers and prospects about how Tealeaf can help with fraud. I'd like to share what I've learned and solicit your feedback and interest in continuing this conversation.

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that Tealeaf is not a turn-key fraud solution.

Tealeaf's products are designed to acquire data passively (i.e. out of band through a network tap or span port) and Tealeaf's value to solving the fraud problem comes from providing insight to discover, research and investigate the problem and impact, thus assisting a company to trying to take action.

While the topic of online fraud is not openly discussed within the wider eCommerce industry (many valid reasons to limit this information exchange) the research and advisory market is full of reports and analyst findings on the impact.

Traditionally, Tealeaf's insight has been focused on understanding online customer behavior relating to conversion and retention and application and usability problems generating visibility into the resulting business impact.  As Tealeaf's solution captures the complete data set (browser views along with HTTP request and HTTP response data) it becomes a powerful ally in efforts to fight fraud.

How to leverage Tealeaf to help fight fraud: 

• Detection -- Becoming aware of fraudulent activity -- either in real time or post mortem.
• Stop -- Block access to the site, or prevent the goods from leaving (time-delayed).
• Research/Investigation -- With the complete stream of traffic capture and built in analytics we can facilitate forensic discovery pivoting off any session or variable commonality
• Report Impact -- Understanding of the breech by depth, loss data viewed
• Action -- notification of parties affected as well as remediation process

From exchanges during our recent regional customer user groups to conversations with concerned prospects, I felt it was worthwhile to compose a document that explores how Tealeaf could be leveraged to help fight fraud. I've also added a section on guidance and examples of possible solutions by verticals to encourage additional thoughts and comments.

Download the White Paper: Visibility into Fraudulent Behavior with Tealeaf

As always, I'm interested in your thoughts and feedback on the topic and continuing the conversation.  Knowing that the subject isn't likely to be discussed in the open I'm adding my contact information below and encourage your replies.

-- Robert Wenig, Founder and CTO
   CTO@tealeaf.com

Comments

[Joe Tooman]

In my experience, Tealeaf is an effective solution in detecting and investigating fraud. I can't get into specifics on how we use Tealeaf in fighting fraud or even the name of my company, a Fortune 500 Financial Services Firm. I can say that we are collecting information with Tealeaf that is used to help meet the requirements of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA) that requires banks to rigorously screen applications for identify theft related fraud. Hundreds of development hours were saved by using Tealeaf to collect data rather than pulling it from our back-end systems. Furthermore, Tealeaf helps us identify sessions containing suspicious behavior that, without Tealeaf, we would be unable to detect through any other means.

-Joe