Vancouver firm NuData Security is challenging how the online security industry deals with web fraud.

“The earlier you can detect fraud or criminal activity the sooner you can put a stop to it,” Jules Campeau, CMO of NuData Security, explained to Techvibes, “whereas a lot of our competition are looking at it after the fact—analyzing it in a forensic manner we are able to give accurate intelligence before it happens.”

A website is not a house: you can’t lock the doors, bar the windows and sound the alarms every time someone browses. You want those who visit to feel welcome, after all that is the whole purpose of a website. But how do you prevent those unsavory characters from entering your home page and soiling your cushions, tracking dirt onto your carpet and taking all your belongings?

In 2009, NuData Security became the solution for a struggling and publicly disliked CAPTCHA market. They created a behavioural analytics engine to understand and profile users before any critical events on the site occur enabling them to show a countermeasure that matched the threat profile of the user.

The behaviour technology developed and now NuDetect, NuData Security’s premiere web-fraud protection software, is protecting the world’s top e-commerce sites and gaining recognition from Gartner Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, in the Magic Quadrant for Web Fraud Detection.

“NuDetect profiles the user and provides a score based upon not who the user is, but what the intent of the user is,” said Campeau. “It can look at every single interaction event. That can be as simple as a mouse click, a stroke across your smart phone or as complex as filling out a form or entering a password.”

“We look at all events on the website as it leads up to a critical decision point, where you might be authenticating or making a financial transaction,” he continued. “We then compile a profile score on that user and then compare that to what is considered good and bad behaviour on your particular website and in the NuData Cloud to determine if the user is a potential threat.”

NuDetect customizes their scoring algorithm for each unique client, whether they are an e-commerce or a government site. What might seem like loyal customer behaviour on one may be incriminating on another. If NuDetect spots a suspicious user trying to purchase a product or alter information on the website, it would send a risk score to the client. From there, the client assesses the situation and determines the best action going forward, whether it is flagging the transaction for later review or blocking it completely.

“What our clients won’t tolerate,” said Campeau, “is if we’re blocking good customers from transactions. That is called a ‘false positive’ or a ‘customer insult.’ Our clients take that issue  as seriously as they do blocking the actual fraud transactions.”

The technology for NuDetect, behaviour analytics and online security are all continuously innovating. There is a lot to anticipate for the future, but NuData Security is developing features that will help companies determine if someone is pretending to be you. By recognizing biometrics, how you swipe your phone or the speed of your typing, the technology can decide whether there is abnormal behaviour on your device or on your account.

“Recently, the game maker Ubisoft had a data leak,” said Matthew Reeves, Marketing Associate of NuData, “they reported that someone internally had their password stolen. What we hope is that in the future even if the password and username is correct, you could tell they are using the site differently. Like a secondary check.”

“It’s not to say we are going to block you,” Campeau added, “but we might not instantly give you access to sensitive information. We might give you access to your email or the Internet, but we are going to check out some things before we do that. What we are is an enabler for companies to take action on those behaviours.”

NuDetect protects the world’s most successful e-commerce sites, odds are NuData Security is currently protecting websites you frequently use. That is why they are now standing face to face with some of the world’s online security industry leaders, competing with such names as RSA, American Express and etc. A great achievement for a Gastown company that only three years ago rebranded themselves, adapted to the a new technology and changed the game of online security.