In the ongoing race between scammers and defenders preventing online fraud, Incognia, the location identity company, is blazing new trails. CEO Andre Ferraz, a serial entrepreneur and technologist, has envisioned and built a solution that harnesses the power of location intelligence, thereby revolutionizing fraud prevention and effectively combating emerging threats.
Addressing the Challenges of Online Fraud
Device fingerprinting has long been a vital tool in fraud prevention. However, as technology advances, so does the sophistication of fraudsters. With the ability to spoof device fingerprinting solutions, and reset or use multiple devices, fraudsters have found new ways to evade detection. As a reference, Incognia mapped that over 60% of the fraudsters operate with multiple devices.
The alternatives to device fingerprinting, such as behavioral and cloud biometrics, have their own limitations. Behavioral biometrics is undermined by its high false-positive rates, while cloud biometrics can be bypassed by sophisticated deepfake technology.
Moreover, phone verification has proven to be vulnerable, with fraudsters using techniques such as phishing and social engineering to collect one-time passwords (OTPs), and SMS’s inherent lack of end-to-end encryption adding to its vulnerability.
The Power of Location Fingerprinting
Faced with these challenges, Andre Ferraz, CEO & Co-founder at Incognia and his team have introduced a game-changing tool in the battle against online fraud: Location Fingerprint.
“Location Fingerprint drastically limits the geolocation territory in which a fraudster can operate,” Ferraz explained. “Moreover, precise location data can be used to trace multiple devices back to the same individual or organization with high accuracy.”
Ferraz further explains the advantage of location intelligence, “The location intelligence layer is a common layer. Even if the user resets or changes their phone, changes the SIM card, you’ll still have this layer of identity.”
Despite these advances, Ferraz notes that Location Fingerprint should not be the sole defense against fraud. “While on-device biometrics provides a strong signal for fraud prevention and is harder to spoof, it remains just one piece of the puzzle in building a comprehensive security strategy,” he pointed out.
Revolutionizing Fraud Prevention
With Incognia‘s geolocation intelligence technology, online businesses can drastically reduce fraud while improving user experience through frictionless authentication and faster user verification at onboarding. And as Ferraz points out, “Trust is the biggest enabler of digital transactions. And we can prove that with location data. Incognia uses the concept of ‘Trusted Locations,’ highly frequented locations specific to each user, combined with the Location Fingerprint and the device behavior. When Incognia detects that a user is at one of their trusted locations, there is a high probability that the transaction is legitimate and at lower risk for fraud, enabling the application to offer a frictionless authentication experience.”
This innovative approach to fraud prevention has been largely enabled by Incognia‘s unique understanding of the real-world user behavior and how it appears in the digital landscape. Ferraz shares, “Location is the most persistent form of identity because it’s always there, it’s always turned on. It’s not intrusive, and people understand it because it’s intuitive.”
As we move forward, location fingerprinting promises to become an essential tool in the continuous fight against fraud. As technology and threats evolve, so must our approach to security. With Incognia leading the charge with innovative location intelligence technology, the future of digital transactions promises to be safer and more secure.
