ComplyCube adds biometric authentication to platform to address emerging fraud trends

Biometric face authentication has been added to ComplyCube’s all-in-one identity verification platform to help prevent account takeover attacks, fake signups at scale, and synthetic identities.

ComplyCube says it has invested heavily in research and development to create new deep learning models. The new capabilities can be deployed through the company’s APIs and SDKs.

“With the introduction of Biometric Authentication, our award-winning adaptive AI platform continues to evolve to stay ahead of fraudsters and fight new sophisticated techniques employed by increasingly organized criminals,” says Harry Varatharasan, chief data scientist at ComplyCube. “Built on top of our core AI spoof detection engine, the new offering builds complex 3D face maps and scans highly optimized indices of banned faces to ensure only genuine customers get through.”

Account takeovers have risen by 148 percent across all sectors over the past 12 months, according to the announcement, while fake signup requests and ‘Frankenstein IDs’ are growing threat trends. Fake signups, often carried out by rotating faces across hundreds of fraud attempts per day, can enable criminals to claim new account bonusses or create mule accounts, ComplyCube notes.

Money mule are a bigger problem than many people realize, according to new research from BioCatch. The behavioral biometrics provider has published new research which accords with ComplyCube’s observations about mule accounts (see below).

Adding strong biometric authentication to ComplyCube’s global KYC checks addresses this altered threat landscape, the company says.

ComplyCube’s presentation attack detection (PAD) system for face biometrics was upgraded in late-2021 to detect spoofs with photos, masks and videos across all channels.

Money mules moving billions

Money mules represent 0.3 percent of all accounts at U.S. financial institutions, at an estimated value of $3 billion in fraudulent transfers, according to BioCatch.

A study co-authored with Aite-Novarica details ‘The Emerging Case for proactive Mule Detection,’ which indicates the problem is also widespread geographically, with some 468,000 mule accounts in the UK accounting for over $700 million in fraudulent transfers. The report also shows that more than 80 percent of fraud executives believe more can and should be done to prevent the risk of mule accounts.

BioCatch says that the use of hybrid bots is enabling the rapid growth of this fraud type.

Article Topics

API  |  biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  ComplyCube  |  face biometrics  |  facial authentication  |  fraud prevention  |  identity verification  |  KYC  |  research and development  |  SDK  |  selfie biometrics