Cybercriminals to steal around $48Bn in E-commerce fraud

According to a recent study by Juniper Research, global e-commerce fraud loss is estimated to reach over $41 billion by the end of 2022. Surprisingly, this figure is estimated to increase a notable 16% YoY, to $48 billion by the end of the next year.

The research identified North America as the target of the majority of cybercriminals. The region is having the largest fraudulent transactions by value and will account for over 42% of global eCommerce frauds in 2023.

The fraudster attacks can include phishing, business email compromises and socially engineered fraud. Online payment fraud includes losses across sales of digital goods, physical goods, money transfer transactions and banking, as well as purchases like airline ticketing.

The research also found that the potential for fraud with Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is a major risk going forward. Given the delayed nature of BNPL payments, fraudsters can make several illegitimate payments using stolen card details before the fraudulent activity is identified, creating significant risk. In turn, the research recommended that BNPL vendors conduct robust identity verification at the point of onboarding to mitigate these risks.

Researchers suggest that eCommerce merchants must implement simple steps such as address verification, combined with risk-based scoring on transactions, which will allow merchants to best mitigate the massive fraud threats present.