Pindrop Security, a startup focused on combating phone-based fraud, today announced the latest version of its flagship Fraud Detection System (FDS), which adds voice biometrics to its “Phoneprinting” technology.
Now in Version 2.0, Pindrop Security’s FDS is able to confirm the identity, location, and type of device used for calls into a particular institution or call center, the company said.
“Phone fraudsters are increasingly using social engineering tactics, leveraging publicly available information to manipulate and trick call center representatives and customer service agents who verify callers with traditional solutions into believing that they are someone else.
According to a report released by the company in November 2013, 1 in every 2,500 calls into a financial institution’s call center is fraudulent, and for every phone call into a financial institution call center there is a $0.57 loss. The average loss per financial account was $42,546.
By integrating voice biometrics, Pindrop says its technology can match voice signatures to identify a caller, with phoneprinting, which analyzes the entire audio spectrum of a call to identify indicators of attack, including Caller ID spoofing, risky callers and call origin locations, suspicious call characteristics and callers with poor reputations.
Before integrating voice biometrics, the company already claimed that its technology could identify over 80% of inbound fraud calls to enterprise contact centers.
“With attackers increasingly unable to crack the robust cyber defenses at most institutions, more and more are moving to the phone channel to gain access to financial accounts,” said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, co-founder and CEO, Pindrop Security. “The integration of voice biometrics into the Pindrop solution is a crucial layer of defense that will help ensure that financial institutions and call centers can trust that the person who calls is who they say they are.”
“The best security is always layered security, and this principle holds true when securing the telephony channel,” wrote Avivah Litan, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst for Gartner. “Using voice biometrics combined with phone printing provides the strongest method for authenticating callers and detecting fraudsters, but using each technology on its own also has many proven benefits.”
Pindrop’s cofounders include Paul Judge and Georgia Tech professors Dr. Mustaque Ahamad and Dr. Patrick Traynor. Judge serves as executive chairman and was previously CTO of CipherTrust which was acquired by Secure Computing, CTO of Secure Computing which was acquired by McAfee, and founder and CTO of Purewire which was acquired by Barracuda Networks.
After raising a $1 million seed round of funding in May 2012, the company closed an $11 Million Series A investment round in June 2013 led by Andreessen Horowitz and Citi Ventures.
