From bot attacks to brute force cyber attacks to internal breaches, the types of fraud that plague organisations are complex and multiple. These fraudulent transactions, which can result in losses three times higher than the original amount and dent reputation and trust, mean effective fraud protection is crucial. However, the growth in online shopping and banking has revolutionised the need for seamless customer experience and meant employees are increasingly the gatekeepers of vast amounts of data and information.
So how do retailers achieve real-time fraud prevention without hindering the digital experience of trustworthy customers? Over a glass of wine, Nimbus Ninety, alongside our partners Ping Identity, brought together experts from across customer experience and fraud prevention to uncover simple but smarter ways to detect anomalous activity in real-time.
DESIGNING ONLINE JOURNEYS THAT DELIGHT CUSTOMERS AND DETECT FRAUDSTERS
Our event began with a keynote from Bastian Krebs, Senior Solutions Architect at Ping Identity who set the scene for the roundtable discussion to come. Bastian highlighted, through the example of brute force cyber attacks, how the security dilemma facing organisations has evolved over the last three years. The common password, considered to be eight characters containing capital letters, numbers and special characters, under a brute force attack took bots 8 hours to solve in 2020. Fast forward a year and the same password took only 39 minutes to solve. Had this password been previously breached, given advancement in cyber attack technology, it would be instantly solvable; a clear sign that passwords are becoming obsolete. We quickly see the novel and complex security landscape that organisations are facing when it comes to securing their customer experiences, placing added emphasis on tools such as multiple factor authentication.
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION
Members then broke into a roundtable discussion. The key takeaways were:
Attending members, ranging from healthcare to financial services to media, all agreed that harmonising security and customer experience is crucial to staying competitive. For instance, members mentioned that achieving this balance is the first step in exploring new channels such as the metaverse or cryptocurrency. Additionally, members were also interested in what role security plays in building trust with both digitally-native and older generations. As such, when it comes to adapting to the increasingly complex digital economy, members are focused on how customer experience builds trusting relationships, maintains reputation and, ultimately, attends to business outcomes.
Whilst the discussion predominantly explored customer fraud, many members thought there should be a similar focus on internal breaches and fraud. On one hand, members considered how insufficient security infrastructure could provide malicious internal players access to data. On the other hand, digital literacy as well as focusing on automation could prevent accidental leakages.
In the discussion, it was clear that members were all at different stages within their digital transformation journey and, as such, faced varying degrees of vulnerability. Some members were making their first steps into digital subscriptions or ecommerce whilst others were exploring API connectivity and embedding security solutions. One solution to these varied challenges was to adopt a zero-trust approach, an authentication heavy model that has gained prevalence through the adoption of mobile and cloud services.
We held this event in partnership with Ping Identity, a CIAM solutions provider.