Four Questions You Need to Answer Before Starting an Open Source Anti-Fraud Program

You’ve faced your fair share of fraudulent situations. They have negatively impacted your business. You’re sick of the detrimental and long-lasting effects of fraud. You’re ready to take action.

But how?

An open source anti-fraud program can be of great help in situations such as yours. Being proactive allows you to halt fraud attempts in their tracks before they wreak havoc on your organization.

But, in order to develop a purposeful, effective program, you must first address a few integral questions.

It’s simple, really.

You need to start thinking differently about risk management, starting with the end in mind.

What Outputs Do We Want to Obtain from the Data?

First, select a particular risk or fraud risk you are managing today. Then, ask yourself, “What outputs do we want to obtain from the data?” Identifying the output allows you to then identify the means by which you can obtain those outputs, whether it’s through websites, email connections, HTML templates, phone numbers, or a multitude of other ways.

Answering this question allows you to then take a look at the next question.

Identify Your Threats: What Is the Issue We Want to Gain Insight On?

Next, ask yourself, “What is the issue we want to gain insight on?” Although the issue is closely linked with the output, there is a distinct difference. What is the underlying issue behind the output?

Once you are able to identify the issue, you can then jump in and actually identify what insight actually looks like from the data — our next key question.

Identify Insight from the Data: What Does Threat Look Like?

You’ve determined your outputs and identified the issue. Now ask yourself, “What does insight from the data look like?”

More simply, what will your threat look like in the data? Where will you stop and point out the issue?

We refer to threats in data as signal. So, what does signal look like?

Quite often, our clients start out with a lot of noise. Noise in data is acceptable. This is especially true when you’re working with Deep Web technologies. It’s the creative approach behind data harvesting and curating that allows us to block out the noise, pinpoint the signal, and generate insights.

An Example of One Open Source Intelligence Program

One example is from our experience working for a large electronics manufacturer building OEM products for different OEMs.

This company was leveraging open source intelligence tools for the prolific sale of OEM parts or product that matched the product that they were manufacturing. Sales had to be greater than five items per person, all within the proximity of the company’s manufacturing and distribution facilities. That type of data would constitute relevant signal. In other words, that specific type of data was the threat this company was looking for.

In the financial industry, credit card data is a huge concern. Consider finding signal in credit card data. Depending on the size of the institution, one or two cards may be a cause for concern, but 150 to 200 cards may be relevant. Clearly defining that signal is the key to developing an open source anti-fraud program.

Harvesting the Right Data

In comes our final integral question: Are you harvesting the right data to obtain the insights? Even if you have clearly defined your outputs, insights, and signals, insufficient harvesting will ruin your anti-fraud program.

That final step is key to ensure that your open source anti-fraud program runs smoothly and effectively.

Harvest the Deep Web With Open Source Intelligence Tools

BrightPlanet is here to help you develop an open source anti-fraud program. Your first step is to answer the four questions in this blog post.

Next, download our recent webinar, “Building an Online Anti-Fraud Open Source Monitoring Program.” This webinar is full of the information you need to create a strong foundation for an open source anti-fraud monitoring program.

Then, contact us to sit down and clearly define the goals that you’d like to harvest towards. If you’re running an anti-fraud initiative or risk management initiative, open source intelligence tools can help a great deal.

We have a DaaS (Data-as-a-Service) proprietary harvesting tool that allows us to build a customized open source solution to fit your exact needs.