There are various ways fraudsters can get someone’s credit card information nowadays. Since most transactions are done digitally, financial institutions are becoming more alarmed about these fraudulent schemes that perpetrators employ. Are there certain ways to avoid these fraud attacks?
One of the fastest growing and most sophisticated fraud attacks today is called the Bank Identification Number, or BIN attack. This is a form of card fraud that has become prevalent across all industries. The rise of BIN attacks is even starting to alarm bigger, sophisticated institutions due to the advanced algorithmic automation the fraudsters now employ to get what they want.
How Do BIN Attacks Work?
A Bank Identification Number (BIN) is the first four to six-digits of numerical code one will see on credit/debit cards that identifies the issuer. How do fraudsters exploit these numbers to their advantage?
They use a technique called the BIN attack. Otherwise known as card testing, it’s how digital criminals acquire and steal card information. They only need the first six digits, which are easily identifiable and obtainable, to allow their software algorithms to generate the remaining sequence of a person’s credit/debit card numbers.
When the sequence is verified through the use of numerous small transactions, the fraudsters know they’ve hit pay-dirt and begin making larger online purchases, often through scam websites they control.
Who is most prone to these BIN attacks?
Patrons and customers of e-commerce websites or online stores often fall vulnerable to these attacks. Which means everyone is a potential target. Fraudsters can run and test multiple cards in a day until they hit the jackpot and steal someone’s credit information. To avoid these attacks, institutions must rely on effective and practical means to stop criminals from scamming individuals, small businesses, large corporations, banks, credit unions and card companies.
Impact of BIN Attacks on Businesses and Financial Institutions
If you’re a vendor, aside from losing your customers’ trust, your business may also incur other expenses such as interchange fees — meaning the amount your processor charges your account for each credit card transaction. You may also have to pay for dispute fees brought on by the countless transactions that fraudsters try each day to get a credit card hit.
Another substantial impact is the possibility of your account getting suspended. If your business is considered high-risk, your merchant account could be blocked and inaccessible. You have to employ all the viable measures available to you to keep your e-commerce business secure and free from attacks like these.
For banks, credit unions and other card issuers, the impact is obvious. Your clients’ data are being fraudulently used, their accounts drained, and trust in you is lost. In the end, you may end up swallowing all the costs associated with BIN attack frauds, and they could be substantial.
Last year, the financial industry incurred $4 in costs for every $1 in fraud. As BIN attacks increase, you could be stuck holding a considerable debt, mounting losses and a reduction in trust and deposits.
Determining BIN Attacks
Below are some of the tell-tale signs that your institution could be in danger of BIN attacks:
- Increased international card transactions: This is the perpetrator using various locations and information to remain untraceable by the authorities.
- Unusual time of transactions: Fraudsters typically operate before sunrise, which is when people are asleep, the previous day’s bank data may have already been batched, and online stores are more vulnerable.
- Multiple declines: This happens when the fraudster constantly tries to access credit card information to make purchases, but they’re denied due to a wrong card number sequence. With the proper technology, your institution may be able to see its BIN numbers in use at this stage.
- A flurry of small transactions: Fraudsters need to test the card sequence to assure it’s valid. To do this, they make dozens of tiny purchase attempts. If successful, they know the sequence is associated with an actual account and the card can be used for bigger transactions.
- Big transactions processed within a short span of time: Note that normal large transactions are typically well spaced. In this case, the transactions only span seconds. Fraudsters make these large purchases quickly before banks and card issuers notice the anomalies.
If your business, card or banking institution is currently experiencing these unusual transactions, then you could be the subject of a BIN attack. Of course, prevention is better than the cure, so take the proper measures to ensure that your customers’ information is safe from fraudsters.
How To Prevent BIN Attacks
There are various ways to protect your company or institution from BIN attacks. Some of these include:
Know Your Transactions
As a business owner, card, or bank fraud team member, you have to familiarize yourself with pertinent information such as your clients’ spending patterns, entry modes, and the countries they make purchases from, among others. This may help you detect a BIN attack before it comes to fruition. If the fraudster has already entered your system, at least you can mitigate the consequences early on.
Detecting the small, rapid purchases when a card sequence is verified should alert you immediately of the scam. Of course, you’ll need real-time artificial intelligence-based fraud tools that operate 24/7/365 to detect them as they’re happening… and before the purchase values rise to the level of “substantial.”
These Ai tools, provided by ToolCASE, can detect even the tiniest anomalies in transactions and alert fraud teams immediately to them. This means BIN attacks could potentially be shut down before funds are stolen.
Strengthen Your Defenses
This is where trusting proven defenses come in. ToolCASE has the most effective, real-time technology in place to ensure that your institution is best protected, even when intruders try to attack. Additionally, ToolCASE’s real-time anti-fraud protocols may not only help detect BIN attacks, but almost all other transactional frauds as well
ToolCASE is the world’s most advanced transactional Ai company. We specialize in the custom development of real-time fraud detection and prevention tools for the banking, credit union and card industries.
Our flagship artificial intelligence, RembrandAi is a multi-level sophisticated Ai system capable of statistical trend analytics, visualization, behavior deviation, anomaly, and profile recognition. It’s leap years’ ahead of the technology fraudsters are using for BIN attacks, and its predictive capabilities may show you where new fraud threats may arise, before they happen.
Protect Your Institution From BIN Attacks
Cleaning up the aftermath of a BIN attack, and accounting all your losses, can be expensive and time-consuming. What may be worse than the financial losses, however, is the loss of trust from your clients… which can lead to a loss of their deposits.
Protect your institution from fraud with ToolCASE.
