Top Ten Most Trusted Universities for Online Activity Named by Device Reputation Authority iovation

PORTLAND, OR--(Marketwire - Jun 5, 2012) - iovation, the Device Reputation Authority™ protecting online businesses from fraud and abuse, today released its list of the most trusted universities in the United States for online activity. After analyzing online transactions such as credit applications and e-commerce purchases, iovation found the University of California at San Francisco to be the university where the lowest percentage of fraudulent transactions originated. The top ten most trusted universities according to iovation, with most trusted being number one, are:

1. University of California, San Francisco
2. Columbia University
3. Cornell University
4. University of Texas
5. University of Chicago
6. University of California, Los Angeles
7. Northwestern University
8. Texas A&M University
9. University of Utah
10. University of Virginia

"With graduation upon us, we wanted to provide a different kind of diploma to universities," said iovation CEO Greg Pierson. "In the online world, just like the real world, reputation is everything. The University of California at San Francisco, and the rest of the top ten, should be proud that they have such a low percentage of fraudulent transactions originating from them."

The top ten most trusted universities were determined leveraging iovation's fraud management solution, ReputationManager 360, over the last six months. It examined transactions from about a billion devices, from computers to tablet computers to mobile phones, to determine if a transaction was originating from a university and if so, whether or not it was fraudulent. Out of universities in the top ten, iovation found 0.18 percent of all transactions were fraudulent compared to an overall rate of 0.8 percent amongst schools worldwide.

Transactions deemed fraudulent by iovation include but are not limited to:

• Account takeovers/hijacking - Account takeovers happen when a criminal tries to take over another person's account by gathering password information on the victim, or by potentially tricking people into providing personal information.
• Auction fraud - In an online auction scheme, a fraudster starts an auction on a site with very low prices and no reserve price, especially for high-priced items like watches, computers, or high value collectibles. The fraudster accepts payment from the auction winner, but either never delivers the promised goods, or delivers an item that is less valuable than the one offered -- for example a counterfeit, refurbished or used item.
• Card not present fraud - The unauthorized use of a credit or debit card number, the security code printed on the card (if required by the merchant) and the cardholder's address details to purchase product or services in a non face-to-face setting. In many cases, the victims maintain possession of their card and are unaware of the unauthorized activity until notified by a merchant or they review their statements.
• Credit card fraud - Customer uses a fake or stolen credit card, often to create multiple accounts or transactions.
• Friendly fraud - Any transaction, contested by a customer, where the merchant suspects that the customer or a personal associate (child, spouse) legitimately authorized the transaction in question.
• Harassment / Bullying - User abuses or harasses another customer with undesirable language, threats, or unwanted advances. This is often found on social networking and/or online dating sites.
• Phishing/identity theft - User makes any attempt to illegitimately acquire personal information from company employees through means of phishing, keystroke logging, creating fake business websites and other methods. Cybercriminals also attempt this by targeting consumers (see account takeovers/hijacking above).
• Profile Misrepresentation - User posts inaccurate information in profile and/or uses bogus profile photos. This is most often found on social networking and/or online dating sites.
• Spamming - User is caught sending unsolicited bulk messages via emails, postings, instant messages, etc. to promote other products, websites or companies. This is often found on social networking and/or online dating sites.

Unlike most anti-fraud measures, which simply look at the transaction details, iovation ReputationManager 360 goes deeper to identify the device (computer, tablet or smartphone) being used to access a website. Then, using a dynamic database of nearly a billion devices, iovation exposes negative behaviors and connections, allowing websites to banish devices involved with fraud or abuse. Investigative tools from iovation further catch bad guys by spotting characteristics consistent with fraud, even on a previously unseen device. This unique iovation capability makes it possible to proactively identify devices that are associated with abuse before bad actors can strike.

About iovation
iovation protects online businesses and their end users against fraud and abuse through an industry-leading combination of shared device reputation and real-time risk evaluation. More than 2,000 fraud managers around the globe leverage iovation's database of Internet devices and relationships between them to determine the level of risk associated with any type of online transaction. Retail, financial services, social network, gaming and other companies make real-time queries to iovation's knowledge base of 950 million devices from every country in the world. Every day, iovation stops over 150,000 fraud attempts. For more information, visit www.iovation.com.