Fraud detection methods. Fraud detection is a process that detects and prevents fraudsters from obtaining money or property through false means. It is a set of activities undertaken to detect and block the attempt of fraudsters from obtaining money or property fraudulently. Fraud detection is prevalent across banking, insurance, medical, government, and public sectors, as well as in law enforcement agencies.
Fraud Detection Methods
Fraudulent activities include money laundering, cyber-attacks, fraudulent banking claims, forged bank checks, identity theft, and many such illegal practices. As a result, organizations implement modern fraud detection and prevention technologies and risk management strategies to combat growing fraudulent transactions across diverse platforms.
These techniques apply adaptive and predictive analytics to create a fraud risk score along with real-time monitoring of fraudulent events. This allows continuous monitoring of transactions and crimes in real-time. It also helps decipher new and sophisticated preventive measures via automation.
Types Of Fraud Detection Techniques
Fraud detection generally involves data analysis-based techniques. These techniques are broadly categorized as statistical data analysis techniques and artificial intelligence or AI-based techniques.
Statistical Data Analysis Techniques
Statistical data analysis for fraud detection performs various statistical operations such as fraud data collection, fraud detection, and fraud validation by conducting detailed investigations. Statistical parameter calculation refers to the calculation of various statistical parameters such as averages, quantiles, performance metrics, and probability distributions for fraud-related data collected during the data capturing process.
Regression analysis allows the examination of the relationship between two or more variables of interest. It also estimates the relationship between independent and dependent variables. This helps understand and identify relationships between several fraud variables, which further helps in predicting future fraudulent activities. These predictions are based on the usage patterns of fraud variables in a potentially fraudulent use case.
Data matching is used to compare two sets of collected data (i.e., fraud data). The process can be carried out either based on algorithms or programmed loops. In addition, data matching is used to remove duplicate records and identify links between two data sets for marketing, security, or other purposes.
Artificial Intelligence-Based Techniques
Deploying Artificial Intelligence, (or AI), for fraud prevention has helped companies enhance their internal security and streamline business processes. Through improved efficiency, AI has emerged as an essential technology to prevent fraud at financial institutions.
Data mining for fraud detection and prevention classifies, clusters, and segments the data and automatically finds associations in the data that may signify interesting patterns, including those related to fraud.
Neural networks under fraud detection perform classification, clustering, generalization, and forecasting of fraud-related data that can be compared against conclusions that are raised in internal audits or formal financial documents.
Fraud detection with machine learning becomes possible due to the ability of machine learning algorithms to learn from historical fraud patterns and recognize them in future transactions. Machine learning either uses supervised or unsupervised learning methods.
Pattern recognition algorithms detect approximate classes, clusters, or patterns of suspicious behavior, either automatically or manually. Other techniques such as link analysis, Bayesian networks, decision theory, and sequence matching are also used for fraud detection purposes.
Applications Of Fraud Detection
Fraud detection is critical for banks and other companies that deal with a large number of financial transactions and are thus more vulnerable to financial fraud. Other industries, such as ecommerce, credit card companies, electronic payment platforms, and B2C fintech companies, must use fraud detection to prevent or limit financial fraud.
Account-related fraud, as well as payment and transaction fraud, are the most common applications of fraud detection. Account fraud is subdivided into two types: new account fraud and account takeover fraud. New accounts are created using forged identities in new account fraud. Such frauds can be identified by detecting fake identities using the patterns of various devices and session indicators.
Account theft fraud occurs when a hacker obtains goods and services by using the account of another person. To avoid this, the user’s session, device, and behavioral biometrics can be computed and scored in order to verify an account. Furthermore, analyzing user journeys for behavioral patterns can aid in the detection of account takeovers before they cause financial harm.
Final Thoughts
Fraud detection is the process of detecting and preventing fraudsters from obtaining money or property by deception. It is a set of activities undertaken to detect and prevent fraudsters from fraudulently obtaining money or property. Fraud detection is common in the banking, insurance, medical, government, and public sectors, as well as in law enforcement.
