TransUnion survey says call centers need authentication help to fend off attacks

Often the only humans that consumers associate with a brand, call center staff are being targeted with authentication scams. A new vendor marketing survey recommends ways to buttress call-center ID authentication without sacrificing service.

A survey of call-center defenses by U.S. credit-reporting company TransUnion describes how employees on the phones occupy an unenviable link in customer relations. TransUnion also sells authentication services.

Respondents said call centers are the biggest problem when it comes to account takeover (ATO) attacks. This is especially the case in financial services, where 60 percent of respondents said call centers are the top source of ATOs.

As the bumper between brand and buyer, call center staff are pressed to deal briskly with callers even as most anti-fraud, ID-authentication tactics increase friction.

Having heard from 58 respondents – most of whom were non-buyers in customer experience – TransUnion says almost everyone in financial institutions reported some increase in attacks on call centers.

The largest segment of respondents — 41 percent of survey takers in industries other than finance — said attacks were “about the same” over 2021 to 2022. Only 10 percent of those in the financial industry said the pace of attacks remained steady.

TransUnion recommends business use pre-answer risk assessment and authentication, deploy tools to identify inbound spoofed and high-risk calls, mitigate interception of one-time passwords and share experiences with fraud across channels.

Interactive voice response systems can provide a useful buffer for calls before an inbound call reaches a call-center employees, but, TransUnion says, they are not widely used, and they are not infallible.

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  call centers  |  financial services  |  fraud prevention  |  spoof detection  |  TransUnion