March 2022 Summaries

Socure’s identity verification and fraud risk platform has received Kantara Initiative certification for meeting NIST Identity Assurance Level 2 requirements, allowing federal agencies to use it for high-assurance digital identity services. NIST SP 800-63 permits remote or in-person identity proofing at IAL2 and aims to balance broad access for legitimate applicants with fraud detection. Socure says the certification can help agencies automate eligibility decisions, reduce manual reviews and fraud, and deliver government services more quickly. The company also notes that fraud techniques continue to evolve and argues that federal standards should be updated to reflect new technologies and threats, while positioning its platform as a way to make access to public benefits and services faster and less burdensome.

Betterment, a large independent digital investment advisor, sought to strengthen identity verification and fraud prevention as customer growth and increasingly sophisticated fraud made its manual review process difficult to scale. After relying on automated background checks and a proprietary document-upload system, the company evaluated Socure’s Predictive DocV and email, phone, and address risk-scoring products, which offered automated document review alongside background fraud analysis. Betterment conducted an extensive proof of concept and selected Socure as the only vendor advanced to that stage, citing its potential to improve auto-approval accuracy, reduce manual reviews, and limit onboarding friction. According to Betterment, deploying the technology increased its ability to identify identity theft, reduced manual account reviews, and raised auto-approvals by 30 percent while helping reduce customer drop-off.

Government agencies have faced major identity-verification challenges, including pandemic-relief fraud, veterans being unable to access benefits, criticism of facial-recognition programs, and concerns that states were misled about verification tools for unemployment services. The passage argues that manual reviews, document-based checks, knowledge-based authentication, and heavy reliance on credit data often cannot accurately distinguish legitimate users from fraudsters at the scale required for programs such as tax collection and benefit distribution. It presents machine-learning-driven, automated identity verification as a more scalable and adaptive alternative, citing the potential to analyze large and varied datasets, respond to changing fraud patterns, and reduce false positives. It also highlights concerns that facial recognition and in-person verification can create barriers for people with limited technology access and may disproportionately affect underrepresented groups, while promoting Socure’s graph-based identity platform as an approach intended to improve accuracy, reduce friction, and expand equitable access to government services.

Account takeover attacks affect organizations across financial services and e-commerce, causing fraud losses while undermining customer trust and brand value. Because compromised credentials can remain effective even with multi-factor authentication, the text advocates a layered defense that assesses risk at account opening and throughout the customer lifecycle, particularly during profile updates and high-value transactions. It highlights validating the ownership and risk of phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, and devices before accepting account changes, sending one-time passcodes, mailing payment cards, shipping valuable goods, or processing loyalty-point redemptions. Socure presents its device and contact-data risk-scoring products as tools for passively correlating identity information and detecting suspicious destinations or transactions while seeking to minimize friction for legitimate customers.

President Biden’s executive order on digital assets prompted optimism in cryptocurrency markets by signaling that the U.S. government intends to incorporate the sector into a broader policy framework while addressing its risks. The order calls for agency recommendations concerning consumer and investor protection, financial stability, illicit finance, U.S. competitiveness, financial inclusion, responsible innovation, and the potential creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency. The text argues that clearer oversight could increase cryptocurrency’s credibility and mainstream adoption, particularly as millions of Americans already use or invest in digital assets, while helping limit money laundering, fraud, and other illicit activity. It also describes how exchanges and wallets use identity verification and transaction delays to manage fraud, sometimes creating friction for legitimate customers. Finally, it promotes Socure’s automated identity, fraud, KYC, AML, and watchlist-monitoring tools as a way for cryptocurrency platforms to reduce manual checks, onboard lower-risk users more quickly, and adapt to evolving regulatory requirements.

Account takeover fraud involves criminals gaining unauthorized access to digital accounts, altering details such as contact information, passwords, cards, or authorized users, and then conducting unauthorized transactions that can cause financial losses and damage customer relationships. Organizations must balance fraud prevention with a low-friction experience for legitimate users, particularly as sophisticated attacks can evade traditional controls such as device fingerprinting and IP-based policies. The piece identifies account-profile changes, including updates to email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses, as an underused opportunity to assess risk before fraudsters can redirect control of an account. It recommends evaluating the risk and correlation of identity elements and device signals across key customer interactions, including sign-ups, logins, account updates, and high-value transactions. Socure promotes its Email RiskScore, Phone RiskScore, and Sigma Device products as tools intended to help organizations protect these processes while preserving customer convenience.

Recent geopolitical developments have prompted the United States and other countries to expand economic sanctions, increasing the urgency for organizations to prevent dealings with sanctioned individuals, associated entities, and beneficially owned companies under OFAC’s 50% Rule. The sanctions landscape is described as rapidly evolving, with lists potentially extending beyond prominent figures to their contacts, enablers, and connected businesses, creating heightened regulatory, reputational, and operational risks. Organizations are advised to conduct immediate risk assessments, brief leadership, ensure onboarding screening is properly configured, and shift from periodic rescreening to at least daily or ideally continuous real-time monitoring as sanctions lists change. Socure promotes its Global Watchlist with Monitoring service as a tool for continuous sanctions screening across OFAC, SDN, FinCEN, global enforcement lists, politically exposed persons, and adverse media, and invites readers to a March 8, 2022 webinar about managing new sanctions-related risks.