Visa has launched an AI-powered enhancement to its Visa Account Attack Intelligence (VAAI) solution, designed to combat the increasing number of account attacks facilitated by automated scripts and botnets.
These attacks, known as enumeration attacks, have contributed to significant financial losses, amounting to approximately US$1.1 billion annually in fraud.
The new feature, named the VAAI Score, aims to bolster the detection and prevention of these attacks by utilizing generative AI to analyse transaction patterns in real-time.
Initially available to U.S. issuers, the tool assigns a risk score to each transaction, focusing particularly on card-not-present (CNP) transactions, to identify potential threats without impacting transaction integrity.
Visa reports that 33% of accounts targeted by enumeration attacks experience fraud within five days of the breach.
The VAAI Score seeks to mitigate this risk by reducing false positives by 85% compared to previous models, offering a more precise detection capability.
Key benefits of the VAAI Score include enhanced fraud prevention and reduced operational losses by detecting complex enumeration patterns swiftly.
Additionally, the tool promises an improved cardholder experience by ensuring that legitimate transactions are processed without delay.
It provides real-time risk scoring, capable of delivering a decision within 20 milliseconds, thus aiding issuers in timely and effective decision-making during transaction authorisation.
The model used for the VAAI Score has been developed with data from over 15 billion VisaNet transactions and includes a significantly enhanced feature set to identify suspicious activities more accurately.
Visa has invested over US$10 billion in the past five years, aimed at enhancing network security and reducing fraud risks.
“Enumeration can have lasting impacts on our clients and there’s an immediate need for tools that can better detect and prevent these attacks in real-time.
With the VAAI Score, our clients now have access to real-time risk scoring that can help detect the likelihood of an enumeration attack so issuers can make more informed decisions on when to block a transaction.”
said Paul Fabara, Chief Risk and Client Services Officer at Visa.
“With access to advanced technology, fraudsters are monetising stolen credentials faster than ever before.
Enumerated transactions impact the entire ecosystem, and with the VAAI Score, we’re giving our clients a sophisticated tool that can help prevent cardholder accounts from being compromised and stop fraudulent transactions before they happen.”
said Michael Jabbara, SVP Global Head of Fraud Services, at Visa.
