Guardian Analytics Anomaly Detection and Fraud Monitoring Helps Financial Institutions Meet Updated FFIEC Guidelines

LOS ALTOS, Calif., June 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday the FFIEC released a supplement to the "Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment" guidance to help financial institutions better protect their account holders from the risks associated with online banking. Guardian Analytics, the market leader in predictive analytics-based fraud prevention software, offers a proven solution that helps banks and credit unions of all sizes meet updated expectations for layered security outlined in the Supplement.

In addition to stressing the need for updated risk assessments, the Supplemental Guidance specifically sets the expectation that institutions should have a layered security program that at a minimum contains "processes designed to detect anomalies and effectively respond to suspicious or anomalous activity" and also includes "enhanced controls for system administrators who are granted privileges to set up or change system configurations."  

Guardian Analytics' flagship solution, FraudMAP, is the only solution built from the ground up using individual account holder behavioral analytics to detect fraud. Over 50 institutions of all sizes have standardized on FraudMAP to proactively monitor every online banking session from login to logout for anomalous login, account maintenance and transaction behavior. These institutions use FraudMAP to successfully detect account compromise and fraudulent transactions across the wide array of attacks before money can be transferred.

"The first expectation for layered security set forth in the guidance is centered on login to logout anomaly detection for good reason; it is proven to detect account takeover and stop fraud," said Terry Austin, CEO, Guardian Analytics. "In the last six years our customers have experienced just how effective behavior-based anomaly detection and transaction monitoring can be, and we are confident the industry will benefit from the new guidelines."

The agencies state in the guidance that transaction monitoring or anomaly detection and response could have prevented many of the frauds that have happened since the ACH/wire transfers originated by the fraudsters were anomalous when compared with the customer's established patterns of behavior.

As a SaaS solution, FraudMAP is deployed rapidly and institutions can be up and running in as little as a few days with little to no IT support. FraudMAP uniquely provides rich behavioral context and individual activity history for fast investigation of suspicious activity. Because it is not evaluating specific malware or fraud activity patterns, FraudMAP can detect new and emerging threats without updating rules or algorithms, making it an effective solution even as threats evolve beyond those outlined in the Supplement.

FraudMAP has successfully prevented a wide range of manual and malware-driven attacks:

• Account compromise stemming from Man-in-the-Browser, malware, phishing, and vishing
• Account reconnaissance where criminals perform unusual non-transactional activities to steal data to commit fraud in other channels or to plan the optimal time to commit online fraud
• Fraud staging, where criminals add new users to defeat dual controls, add mules or payees to ACH batches, create new wire templates, or add payees to bill pay
• Fraudulent ACH, wire, bill pay, and other bank-to-bank transfers

FraudMAP is available in two versions: FraudMAP for Retail Banking and FraudMAP for Business Banking. Pricing and functionality options support the needs of small community banks and larger more complex organizations.

About Guardian Analytics

Headquartered in Los Altos, Calif., Guardian Analytics is focused on the prevention of online banking fraud and committed to making advanced solutions available to institutions of all sizes. The company's risk management approach to detecting account takeover and fraudulent transactions is built on deep expertise in behavioral analytics, online banking and online fraud. National and community banks and credit unions rely on Guardian Analytics to protect individual account assets, the integrity of their online channels and their brand reputations. Founded in 2005, Guardian Analytics is privately held with venture funding from Foundation Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures and Split Rock Partners. For more information, please visit www.guardiananalytics.com.

SOURCE Guardian Analytics