TransUnion today released its quarterly analysis of global online fraud trends, which found that the telecommunications, e-commerce and financial services industries have been increasingly impacted. TransUnion found Millennials have been most targeted by fraudsters using COVID-19 scams.

This quarter TransUnion analyzed fraud trends to reflect the changing economic environment with COVID-19. It used March 11, 2020 – the date the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) a global pandemic – as a base date for its analysis. 

Overall, TransUnion found the per cent of suspected fraudulent digital transactions rose 5% when comparing the periods Jan. 1-March 10 and March 11-April 28. TransUnion identified more than 100 million suspected fraudulent transactions from March 11-April 28.

Fraud Types and Their Impact on Industries

TransUnion analyzed the below industries for a change in the per cent of suspected fraud against them, comparing the periods of Jan. 1-March 10 and March 11-April 28.

Suspected Fraud Post-Pandemic Declaration

Industry	Suspected fraud increase	Top type of fraud	Top country for suspected fraud origination
Telecommunications	76%	Credit card	Timor-Leste
E-Commerce	12%	Promotion abuse	Indonesia
Financial Services	11%	Identity theft	Syria
Gambling	-1%	Promotion abuse	Sri Lanka
Public Sector	-1%	Account takeover	Nigeria
Insurance	-3%	Ghost broking	Pakistan
Logistics	-7%	Shipping	Philippines
Communities	-11%	Phishing	Ivory Coast
Travel & Leisure	-38%	Credit card	Haiti
Healthcare	-40%	Identity theft	Finland
Gaming	-43%	Gold farming	Myanmar

Source & Source & Copyright©2020 – TransUnion

Comment

“Our data shows that as social distancing changes shopping patterns, fraudsters have taken notice and targeted the more digital forward industries while following the money,” said Melissa Gaddis, senior director of customer success, Global Fraud & Identity Solutions at TransUnion. “For instance, although we found online gaming increased 64% as people stay home, it isn’t immediately lucrative to target those companies since financial information isn’t generally shared there. However, telecommunications, e-commerce and financial services all have large digital adoption, financial information and payments at the centre of their online experience, and fared relatively well transactionally compared to other industries during the pandemic.”  

Methodology

For its transactional data, TransUnion analyzed the billions of online transactions its flagship fraud and identity solution, TransUnion IDVision® with iovation®, assessed for fraud indicators for more than 40,000 websites and apps. It compared the per cent of suspected fraudulent transactions it saw from Jan. 1-March 10, 2020 to those from March 11-April 28, 2020.

For a hub of relevant educational resources aimed to help fight fraud during this time, go to the TransUnion Global Fraud & Identity Solutions COVID-19 resource center. 

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CTMfile take: Cyber fraud is global – see the range of countries originating the fraud. Any cybersecurity solution needs to be global too.