Why Outseer has Behavioral Biometrics: A Strategic Signal for Improving Fraud Detection

We’ve been talking about the Outseer Behavioral Biometric product openly, but what has not been shared is the rationale for why we have chosen to develop this capability.

Obviously, any new product must have a tangible value to customers; there must be a return on investment to implementing it—both in terms of reducing total fraud losses but also improving operational efficiency.

Visualizing the Attacker Methodology

Behavioral Biometrics has emerged over the past 10 years as one of the most desirable components in a digital fraud management framework. The key value is that for the first time, defenders are able to envisage what the attackers are doing—not just at the device level but looking behind the device.

It allows fraud fighters to get into the mindset of thinking like the attacker—as a ‘Red Team’—by using the data points to illustrate intent and motive behind the digital journey interactions.

Pivoting of the Threat Landscape

Over the same time period, the fraud threat landscape has shifted on its axis—unauthorized fraud where the fraudster manipulates the customer account has been overtaken by authorized fraud where the customer themselves is manipulated.

Within Outseer, we are evolving ourselves, taking existing proven controls and enhancing them with machine learning and new signals. GenAI is accelerating the capabilities of fraudsters, which results in banks demanding improvements. To our mind, Behavioral Biometrics is just a signal—on its own it does not solve all problems—but it definitely brings unique insights which are otherwise missing.

Signal vs Noise Simplified

Risk engines need more data points that are specific to newer attack types, and that is what Behavioral Biometrics really delivers. By linking it into the context of the transaction (payee and value, current and historic), the device intel, and data from other channels, you bring down false positives.

Being able to do this natively in a single platform—without implementing a point solution—is how banks are now thinking, as they look to simplify vendor management and integration.

Identifying Earlier and Interdicting

Behavioral Biometrics is useful in identifying scams where the victim is guided in real time via the phone—it is very good at authenticating that it is the genuine customer making the payments, but also that they are acting atypically with signs of coercion. Layering it with signals such as active phone call and a new payee for a large amount improves accuracy.

Future developments based around behavioral insights look to be able to break the spell earlier before the payment. Subtle nuances in behavioral changes can be queried and context-based questions asked which seek to break the spell of the customer. Outseer is developing this as we speak, linking into the Behavioral Biometrics insights.

Regulations Catching Up with Innovation

The other reason for introducing Behavioral Biometrics is that of Regulatory Compliance—particularly for authentication in regions where Stronger Customer Authentication (SCA) is mandated. Behavior can prove it is the real user behind the device and simplify authentication journeys such as 3DS challenges by removing the need for a password. Other jurisdictions such as Malaysia are explicitly asking for client behavioral analysis in their regulations, and we expect this trend to continue to grow over time.

Reimagining the Platform

So, we’ve covered the value from a fraud and authentication perspective, and how Behavioral Biometrics helps solve the challenges that financial institution fraud teams face. From an Outseer perspective, it proves how we are evolving, with a lot of investment behind the scenes on people and machine learning capability. Behavioral Biometrics is just the first of the more visible enhancements we’re undertaking to enhance our platform.

End-to-End Capability That Is Integrated and Affordable

The Outseer fraud prevention platform gives cross-channel capability (Digital Banking and 3DS Cards) alongside intel about attacker activity in FraudAction. Behavioral Biometrics can be rapidly deployed for existing customers in a cost-effective manner and can also be linked with other signals.

Some scam types will not be stopped by just looking at the behaviors on the victim accounts—we need to look more at where the money is ending up. Our next capability is money mule detection by using transactional, non-transactional, and Behavioral Biometrics to detect risks across organizations.

Constant Improvement in the Face of Organized Adversaries

Our goal is to keep improving—to build on the heritage and scalability of our platform—and to demonstrate we understand the challenges financial institutions now face. Fraud has emerged as a critical threat to national security globally due to the scale of losses now seen.

Organized transnational crime groups dominate and, in some cases, are linked to Nation State or Terrorist sponsors. At Outseer, we strive to give a better view of risk across the entire fraud landscape for the sake of maintaining trust in digital channels.