Systems and methods for detection of online payment mechanism fraud

Abstract

There is provided a method for detecting fraudulent use of monetary credentials during online transactions, comprising: receiving by a computing system, from a client terminal via a network, a request to obtain a digital voucher having a certain monetary equivalent using monetary credentials of a user, determining, a risk of malicious use of the monetary credentials according to an analysis of data denoting the context of the monetary credentials, providing, to the client terminal, a digital unusable voucher, wherein the digital unusable voucher is invalid for performing an online transaction, wherein the digital unusable voucher is structurally similar to a valid voucher that is valid for performing the online transaction, and identifying malicious use of the monetary credentials when within an elapsed predefined interval of time, no appeal in response to invalidity of the digital usable voucher during an attempt to perform the online transaction is received from the user.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for detecting fraudulent use of monetary credentials during online transactions, comprising:
 receiving by a computing system, from a client terminal via a network, a request to obtain a digital voucher having a certain monetary equivalent using monetary credentials of a user;   determining, by a hardware processor of the computing system, a risk of malicious use of the monetary credentials according to an analysis of data denoting the context of the monetary credentials;   providing, to the client terminal via the network, a digital unusable voucher, wherein the digital unusable voucher is invalid for performing an online transaction, wherein the digital unusable voucher is structurally similar to a valid voucher that is valid for performing the online transaction; and   identifying malicious use of the monetary credentials when within an elapsed predefined interval of time, no appeal in response to invalidity of the digital usable voucher during an attempt to perform the online transaction is received from the user.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein a valid digital voucher having the certain monetary equivalent is provided to the client terminal via the network, when within the elapsed predefined interval of time, the appeal is received from the user. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the monetary credentials are valid for performing the online transaction, and the determining of the risk of malicious use of the monetary credentials is triggered by validation of payment of the online transaction using the monetary credentials. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising identifying authorized use of the monetary credentials when within the elapsed predefined interval of time, the appeal is received from the user. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising storing in a data repository a profile of the user associated with authorized use of the monetary credentials, and automatically detecting authorized use of the monetary credentials according to the profile when the user provides another request to obtain another digital voucher using the monetary credentials. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further providing a monetary refund to the user when within the elapsed predefined interval of time, the appeal is received from the user. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising automatically providing a refund according to the certain monetary equivalent, to the user whose monetary credentials were maliciously being used when the malicious use is identified. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising designating the user associated with the identified malicious use of the monetary credentials as a malicious user and rejecting future requests to obtain the digital voucher by the malicious user. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the money credentials are selected from the group consisting of: a credit card number, a credit card expiration date, a credit card security code, a PIN (personal identification number), a debit card number, and a gift card number. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving additional data associated with at least one of the user and the monetary credentials, and wherein the analysis to determine the risk of malicious use of the monetary credentials is based on the additional data.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the additional data includes one or more members selected from the group consisting of: third party data, empirically collected data, a profile of the user, behavior of the user, and contextual data. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the data denoting the context of the monetary credentials includes one or more members selected from the group consisting of: a risk profile of the user, monetary credentials, the type of purchase, the value of the purchase, and the velocity of the use of the monetary credentials within the network. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the determining the risk of malicious use is performed by a statistical classifier that classifies the monetary credentials to one of:
 a high risk category indicative of a high risk of malicious use, the high risk category triggers the providing the unusable voucher; and   a low risk category indicative of a low or negligible risk of malicious use, the low risk category provides the valid voucher and aborts the providing the unusable voucher.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 13 , further comprising a very high risk category for classification by the statistical classifier, the very high risk category indicative of very high risk or certainty of malicious use, the very high risk category triggers identifying malicious use of the monetary credentials. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the no appeal being received from the user within the elapsed predefined interval of time is detected by at least one of: lack of a phone call by the user to a help-line, closing of a window hosting an interface for entering the appeal, and explicit selection by the user of an icon representing a decision not to appeal. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising storing in a data repository, the monetary credentials and the identified malicious use of the monetary credentials, and determining the risk of malicious use when the stored monetary credentials are used in another request to obtain another digital voucher. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising storing in a data repository, data indicative of the user associated with the identified malicious use of the monetary credentials, and providing access to the data repository to other servers providing online transactions for blocking the user associated with the identified malicious use from performing online transactions. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the online transaction comprises an online purchase of at least one of: a physical product, a physical service, a digital product, and a digital service. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the digital unusable voucher is invalid for performing the online transaction by triggering a delay in delivery of a purchase of the online transaction, wherein the certain monetary equivalent associated with the digital unusable voucher is processed, wherein the malicious use of the monetary credentials are identified when within the elapsed predefined interval of time, no appeal in response to the delay of delivery of the purchase is received from the user. 
     
     
         20 . A system for detecting fraudulent use of monetary credentials during online transactions, comprising:
 a malicious activity detection server comprising:
 a network interface for connecting to a client terminal over a network; 
 a program store storing code; and 
 at least one hardware processor coupled to the network interface and the program store for implementing the stored code, the code comprising:
 code to receive, from the client terminal via the network, a request to obtain a digital voucher having a certain monetary equivalent using monetary credentials of a user; 
 code to determine a risk of malicious use of the monetary credentials according to an analysis of data denoting the context of the monetary credentials; and 
 code to provide, to the client terminal via the network, a digital unusable voucher, wherein the digital unusable voucher is invalid for performing an online transaction, wherein the digital unusable voucher is structurally similar to a valid voucher that is valid for performing the online transaction; 
 wherein malicious use of the monetary credentials is identified when within an elapsed predefined interval of time, no appeal in response to invalidity of the digital unusable coupon during an attempt to perform the online transaction is received from the user. 
 
   
     
     
         21 . The system of  claim 20 , wherein the network interface of the malicious activity detection server is in communication with a validation server over the network, wherein the validation server validates the monetary credentials for payment of the product, and the code to determine the risk of malicious use of the monetary credentials is triggered by the validation of the validation server. 
     
     
         22 . A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing program code thereon for implementation by at least one hardware processor of a server in network communication with a client terminal, for detecting fraudulent use of monetary credentials during online transactions, comprising:
 program instructions to receive, from the client terminal via the network, a request to obtain a digital voucher having a certain monetary equivalent using monetary credentials of a user;   program instructions to determine a risk of malicious use of the monetary credentials according to an analysis of data denoting the context of the monetary credentials; and   program instructions to provide, to the client terminal via the network, a digital unusable voucher, wherein the digital unusable voucher is invalid for performing an online transaction, wherein the digital unusable voucher is structurally similar to a valid voucher that is valid for performing the online transaction;   wherein malicious use of the monetary credentials is identified when within an elapsed predefined interval of time, no appeal in response to invalidity of the digital unusable coupon during an attempt to perform the online transaction is received from the user.