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Thursday, May 07, 2009
Startup Takes New Spin On Online Fraud Detection
A security startup is preparing to emerge from stealth mode with a new technology that detects in real-time whether an online user or member of a social network is legitimate—and not a bot, automated tool, or criminal performing financial or other online fraud. Pramana, which will officially launch in July, has developed what it calls HumanPresent, a technology spun off from research at Georgia Tech that catches online fraud in action, real-time, using a dynamic method of identifying human behavior anomalies while at the same time preventing the fraudsters from detecting that they’re being watched.
We deploy different collection mechanism strategies on different pages to evade detection, as well as evolve our system with new strategies,” says Sanjay Sehgal, CEO of Pramana, who is keeping the details of the inner workings of HumanPresent close to the vest so as not to tip off the bad guys. “We are in the abuse and fraud detection and prevention part of the security space, not network security,” he says.
In addition, Pramana’s technology doesn’t use device fingerprinting to identify a bot or rogue activity like other online fraud firms, such as Iovation and 41st Parameter.
Pramana offers both a Linux-based virtual appliance that handles the fraud detection on-site or a software-as-a-service model.
Among Pramana’s customers so far are financial services firms, social networking sites, online gaming sites, and Webmail sites.
Pricing for the HumanPresent SaaS ranges from 50 cents to $2 per user or per transaction; the company has not yet determined pricing for its appliance, which is based on a hardened version of Linux.