The landscape of cybersecurity is ever-changing, as is the threat profile that online service providers face on a daily basis. However, though new threats often generate big headlines in the tech world, it’s always worth keeping an eye on re-emerging problems that happen more often.
An example of this is account fraud. This has been a major concern for online companies for many years, but the development of captcha and two factor authentication have meant that this type of fraud is more difficult to carry out. That said, as hacking tools have become more sophisticated, account fraud has once again become easier for hackers to achieve.
For this reason, businesses need to make sure they have the right tools in place in order to prevent account fraud at the very first point of contact. That’s where email verification comes in.
Read on to find out how to choose an accurate email verification solution to prevent account fraud.
The role of email verification is to check that email addresses are valid and active. The term ‘valid email address’ refers to an email address that can receive a message from another sender.
Email verification is the process of checking an email address for being existent and active, aka valid. A valid email is the one that can receive messages from other senders.
Most online businesses require that customers enter a valid email address in order to sign up for a new account. Using a multi-layered approach to verifying email addresses helps companies to eliminate fraudulent email addresses, meaning they only build relationships with real customers.
A good email verification solution will automatically analyse an email address when it is entered and spot any patterns that indicate fake sign ups, such as disposable email addresses, suspicious server location or email addresses containing gibberish.
Many email verification solutions can spot freemail and disposable email addresses, and this offers some protection against fraud. However, for real accuracy and more robust fraud protection, you need an email verification service that looks for the less obvious signs of fraud, such as false IP location.
Download our guide to find out why fake sign ups are problematic and why email address intelligence should be your first line of defence against them.