January 18, 2016
Bob Griffin, general manager for IBM Safer Planet, told TechCrunch that his company had officially acquired Germany-based fraud detection firm IRIS Analytics to beef up its credit card fraud identification abilities. By using a “white box model” of fraud detection and intervention, IRIS allows clients to perform their own security fixes instead of waiting on a central vendor to roll out official patches for all of their clients — something IBM and Griffin have been interested in for a good while.
What does IRIS bring to the table that IBM couldn’t resist? The firm employs a machine learning approach to target fraudulent activities as they happen instead of after the fact. TechCrunch illustrated an example of a cardholder not disclosing travel to a foreign country and his or her card showing up there anyway.
Especially as more and more consumers move away from cash and toward physical cards or digital wallets, attempted fraud will undoubtedly increase in kind; catching hackers red-handed, though, saves a lot more time and money than tracking them down after their digital digressions.