Fraud Protection for Your Business: We're Looking Out for Your Data
Fraud doesn't take a single shape when it comes to security, so neither can the fraud protection measures your business puts in place. Business communications can be vulnerable and a common target, as bad actors are emboldened by a variety of motivations, from defrauding customers and employees to the primary company itself.
Read on to learn how you can build trust in your business and provide your customers with a secure experience.
Fraud Protection Strength 1: Two-Factor Authentication
The password isn't dead as a security measure, but it's increasingly considered a first line of defense only. To keep things truly safe, a secondary factor — a confirmation SMS or phone call, for instance — must be utilized.
Verify API makes building that next line of defense into your business easy, fast, and flexible. In addition to one-time passwords delivered via SMS or voice call, you have options like WhatsApp and email-based verification, both of which can help make sure the person on the other end of the line is who they say they are. Silent Authentication, a mobile network-based two-factor authentication verification method, is also available to customers who wish to streamline and speed up the authentication process for their customers and users. This authentication method doesn’t require input from the users. Instead, Silent Authentication verifies users automatically through their data connection and unique mobile number.
Instead of shoehorning your two-factor authentication program into a method that might not suit your workflow or customer experience, API-based development means you can implement the provided options in a way that fits them both perfectly. And because the API can be implemented across numerous highly popular communication channels, the administrating company has far less to worry about in terms of potential weak links and problems — all supported channels can be given the same level of secure business communication support.
Fraud Protection Strength 2: Omnichannel Documentation and CRM Integration
In finance, documentation is key to both avoiding fraud and achieving compliance with regulations, like the Dodd-Frank Act. The need (and regulatory requirement) to keep deep records of all incoming and outgoing customer communications can run at odds with customers' desire to have private communications over multiple channels and formats — think: a customer who initiates contact via SMS then reaches out for a follow-up later on WhatsApp.
With a competent CPaaS solution bridging multiple channels, fighting fraud and staying compliant don't have to be at odds. Modern platforms can allow your company to loop all communications methods under a single collection method and add supported channels as needed without having to consider storage, access and other factors that may come up during an audit. And since solutions like Vonage Communications APIs integrate with multiple leading CRMs, the output can be sorted and distributed simply through the platforms your employees are already familiar with, reducing the need for retraining and eliminating productivity losses that come from chasing information across systems.
Fraud Protection Strength 3: Live Video Consultation
In fields like healthcare, providers are bound by strict privacy and confidentiality regulations that can open businesses to adverse outcomes when things go wrong. As a result, secure business communications must be properly configured, and providers must take care to make sure they're providing the right information to the right people every step of the way.
In the health arena and fields like finance, a secure live video session — as opposed to voice- or text-only conversations — can provide an extra layer of visual confirmation for providers worried about fraud prevention. As with other API offerings, Vonage Video API can be configured to provide a virtual video environment that enables HIPAA or PCI compliance and fits with your current roadmap and tech capabilities.
Fraud Protection Strength 4: AI-Based Fraud Detection and Step-Up Verification
There's no denying that fraud prevention is a tricky game. Customers expect to be secure in every interaction, and the reputational and financial risks of providing less-than-stellar secure business communications are obvious. But the same users and even employees are loath to spend too much time on the nuts and bolts of the process. If you make them feel like they're wasting time in the name of security, they're likely to start shopping somewhere else or, in the case of employees, resort to unapproved platforms to carry out their jobs.
That's where intelligence-powered practices, like step-up verification, which only activates when certain risk factors are identified by the system, come into play. Used properly, the protection process can start seamlessly from the moment the user creates their account. By confirming the validity of phone numbers via a dedicated backend AI-powered detection engine and subjecting only users with a high-risk score — derived via the phone number's location, active availability, and other factors — to extra verification, companies can better protect themselves and their most valuable assets (the people on both sides of the counter) from the start.
Step-up practices can also be used to instantly confirm the viability of phone numbers given during the account creation and update process, reducing the incidence of fraudulent and illegitimate accounts cluttering up the data warehouse. Using the methodology in a properly equipped solution, users across the SMB spectrum can leverage the API to control costs, avoid unnecessary transaction delays — which can lead to open carts and other revenue-impacting problems — and provide smart fraud protection on the spot.
Fraud Protection Strength 5: Interconnected, Real-Time Defense
Another challenge with ongoing fraud defense: The goalposts are always shifting. It’s critical to be able to change definitions, eliminate vectors, and stay alerted at all times. If you’re operating on yesterday’s information, you’re putting yourself at risk.
Fraud Defender, a part of the comprehensive Vonage Protection Suite, simplifies the fraud detection process and puts businesses where they should be in regard to fraud problems – in front of them. It’s an easy-to-implement alert and blocking system that helps businesses define what fraud looks like in their specific context. Controls can be put in place for voice and SMS traffic, allowing companies to lock down two of the most common sources of telecommunications fraud from a single point.
Fraud Defender and other arms of the Protection Suite (including Number Insight API and Verify API) work globally, keeping users and their customers safe no matter what regions they operate in. The tools can be configured to notify stakeholders when suspicious traffic comes through or outright block it, without need for human intervention. And since the solutions all come under the Vonage banner, they’re built to work together with our other offerings with minimal technical lift.
Fraud defense becomes significantly easier when your tools are built by experts and designed to be interconnected from the start. Instead of chasing issues and setting policies across multiple fragmented systems, each with their own rules and limitations, you get an all-in-one defensive tool that considers the entire context.
Get Started Combating Fraud
With a multifaceted, multi-platform concern like fraud prevention, companies must build smart security measures directly into the systems and policies their employees and customers interface with. Anything less is asking for trouble, lost revenue, and sunk goodwill.
Learn more about Vonage Protection Suite to get started now.
