An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique string of numbers separated by periods, assigned to each device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. It serves two main purposes: identifying the host or network interface and providing the location of the host in the network. Essentially, it’s like a mailing address for your computer on the internet. From a security and fraud prevention perspective, IP addresses serve as a crucial first step in identifying risk.

What is an IP Blacklist?

An IP blacklist is a database that contains a list of IP addresses that are known to be sources of spam, malicious activities, or other harmful behaviors. These blacklists are used by network administrators and email servers to filter out and block communications from these suspect IPs. By referencing these lists, organizations can prevent harmful interactions with known malicious sources.

Why Do IP Addresses Get Blacklisted?

IP addresses can be blacklisted for several reasons, including:

  1. Spamming: Sending unsolicited bulk emails or messages.
  2. Malware Distribution: Being a source of harmful software intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems.
  3. Part of a Botnet: Being involved in a network of private computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the owners’ knowledge.
  4. Phishing Attacks: Attempting to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
  5. Suspicious Activity: Engaging in activities that are marked as unusual or potentially harmful based on certain security protocols.

Additional Information Obtainable About an IP Address

  • VPN Detection: It’s possible to detect if an IP address is associated with a Virtual Private Network (VPN). VPNs are often used to mask a user’s real IP address for privacy reasons, but they can also be employed for malicious purposes.
  • Location: IP addresses can be geolocated to determine the geographical location of the device. This information can be useful in identifying if communications are coming from regions known for high levels of cybercrime.
  • Connection Type: Whether the IP is from a residential, public, or corporate network.
  • Risk Assessment: Some services provide a risk score based on the IP’s history and behavior patterns.

Why You Should Use an IP Insights for Fighting Fraud

  1. Block Bad Actors: Known bad actors can be instantaneously identified and blocked by seeing that their IP address has previously been used for fraudulent activity.
  2. Identify Red Flags: Rules can be setup to identify unusual or suspicious attributes, such as the location of an IP address, whether it’s on a VPN, if it’s from a corporate or private network, and much more.
  3. Prevent Spam: Blacklists help in filtering out unwanted spam, which can often be a carrier for malware.
  4. Enhance Security: By blocking IPs known for malicious activities, you significantly reduce the risk of cyber attacks.
  5. Save Resources: It helps in saving bandwidth and system resources that would otherwise be used to process traffic from these blacklisted IPs.
  6. Protect Reputation: If you’re running a web service, protecting your users from harmful IPs preserves your reputation and trustworthiness.
  7. Compliance: For businesses, it helps in complying with data protection and privacy laws by reducing the risk of data breaches.

Understanding and utilizing IP blacklists and insights is a crucial aspect of preventing fraud and maintaining cybersecurity in today’s digital world. By effectively blocking communication from suspicious sources, organizations can significantly reduce their exposure to a wide range of fraud and cyber threats. Additionally, the ability to gather more detailed information about an IP address enhances overall security measures, providing a more robust defense against potential cyber attacks.

How can Honey Badger help?

Use Honey Badger to instantly lookup an IP address via API or through our Risk Insights web portal. Each lookup provides a risk score along with a breakdown of all the information gathered on an IP address. To find out more visit Honey Badger’s Risk Insights page.

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Account Servicing

Stop fraud and improve customer experience during account servicing by eliminating SMS One Time Passwords (OTP). Instead, leverage phone based SIM authentication which involves comparing data generated by the Mobile Network Operator (MNO) with mobile device session data. This provides a foolproof way of proving that an individual is in possession of their two-factor device.

Benefits

This new approach to authentication isn’t susceptible to SIM swap attacks and doesn’t require the user to enter a password. Ultimately, account takeover attacks are blocked, while customer experience is improved and the time taken to service a request us reduced.

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Contact Data Cleaning

Contact Data Cleansing verifies that the contact and personal information you hold isn’t out of date or inaccurate. Data is compared against the information held on file by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Whether processing a single record or sanitising thousands of records in batch, you’ll quickly identify bad data.

Benefits

The case for maintaining up-to-date records goes way beyond good practice for compliance and regulatory reasons. It’s critical to ensuring customers are contactable. Furthermore, it reduces security threats by ensuring communications aren’t sent to the incorrect individuals.

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SIM Swap Detection

SIM Swap Detection is a critical step in stopping account takeover. Why? Because account takeover attacks commonly exploit the ease of which a phone number can be stolen by simply assigning it to a new SIM. This allows bad actors to intercept communications, such as SMS one-time-passwords (OTP), which are used by 93% of enterprises worldwide to verify customers.

Benefits

SIM Swap Detection instantly and silently checks the history of a SIM card to see when it was last swapped. Recent swaps indicate high risk of fraud, allowing you to take appropriate action, such as failing verification or requesting additional security procedures are followed.

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Social Trace

Social Trace significantly reduces the risk of losing contact with your customers by diversifying communication channels. Simply drop the Social Trace widget into your onboarding workflow and allow customers to connect one or more social channels with just a click.

Benefits

Lenders who capture social channels are significantly less likely to lose contact with their customers. Why? Because different demographics prefer to engage over different channels. This is particularly important when it comes to collections. Initiating contact over different channels increases your chances of getting a response, which in turn increases the likelihood of resolving late or non payment. 

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Mobile Fraud Check

Mobile Fraud Check allow you detect fraud indicators using data provided by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). Key checks include device overseas, call forwarding, SIM swap, a high risk number database lookup and much more.

Furthermore, Mobile Fraud KYC allows you to verify a person’s firstname, lastname, date of birth and postcode against the data held on file by MNOs. Since MNOs conduct their own KYC checks on new customers, it gives you the ability to match personal information you collect against a trusted and verified source.

Benefits

Mobile Fraud Checks happen instantly and with zero customer friction. The data held by MNOs is often more recent and reliable than other data sources and a level of granularity is provided,  allowing you to see how many and which KYC fields matched.

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Mobile Data for Credit Risk

Mobile Data for Credit Risk delivers the data required to predict credit risk based on a persons mobile phone information. Key data attributes include the network provider, line type, and KYC match information. Working in partnership with lenders we’ve been able to clearly identify correlations between this data and the likelihood of a loan going into arrears.

Benefits

Open Banking Vs Mobile Data. Which is the most effective in predicting bad borrowers? A recent project with a UK lender compared a risk model built with Open Banking against a model built with Honey Badger’s Mobile Data. The results showed that both models outputted almost identical risk scores. The difference? Mobile Data could be deployed immediately with no customer friction required to calculate a risk score.

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Geo Authentication

Geo Authentication™ provides frictionless identity verification that reduces abandonment rates. Users simply select images that they recognise from nearby to their address. In built anti-fraud controls ensure that valid users can complete the challenge whilst bad actors are blocked.

Benefits

Leading lenders such as Amplifi Capital use Geo Authentication during applications as an alternative to more intrusive identity verification checks, such as document uploads, that cause high friction and lead to increased dropouts. Completion rates with Geo Authentication are 28% higher and have subsequently helped drive an increase in revenue for the business.

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