cybersecurity

Evina raises 20 million euros to secure financial services for telecom operators

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

 

Paris, November 18, 2021 – Paris-based cybersecurity company Evina, which operates in 70 countries, has announced a €20 million funding round to consolidate its leading position in securing financial services for telecom operators.

The future of telecom operators will not be determined by the sales strategy of cell phone plans, but by the ability to provide new services to the huge customer bases they have patiently built up. Among these, financial services are the most crucial.

The financial services offered by telecom operators today not only offer the possibility to buy digital content, mobile applications or subscriptions to major streaming platforms directly via their SIM card, but also to receive, withdraw and transfer money. The aim is both to offer a highly efficient one-click payment method with conversion rates 100 times higher than those of a bank card, and to replace and compensate for the absence of basic banking services. Especially at a time when there are more smartphones than people on earth, and 2 billion people do not have a bank account.

Today, nearly 20% of global digital content purchases go through operators. By 2021, this will be worth more than $40 billion, with double-digit annual growth. In addition, more than $2.5 trillion is flowing through operators’ e-wallets. This amount is expected to double within 5 years.

The financial services offered by operators are so successful that they have inevitably attracted organized crime from around the world. “All the criminal organizations in the world are converging on cybercrime,” warns Guillaume Poupard, the Director General of the French National Agency for Information Systems Security.

It is to face this challenge that Evina was founded in 2018 by a team of hackers, cybersecurity researchers and financial services specialists who have worked for more than 15 years in the sector they protect.

More than $1 billion saved in the last 12 months by Evina for ecosystem players

David Lotfi, CEO and founder of Evina explains how it all started: “We realized that no one knew how to stop this new generation of cybercriminals, who are extremely professional and have much more advanced technical and financial resources than before. We saw this as a major threat and decided to develop a dedicated solution. Very quickly, the largest operators around the world asked to implement our solutions.”

Evina is now present in over 70 countries. It protects the world’s largest telecom groups such as Orange and Vodacom, but also major digital merchants for whom control of operator payment is a strategic advantage. With a detection rate of 99.94% of false transactions and a false positive rate of less than 0.06%, Evina has prevented the theft of more than 1 billion euros over the last 12 months.

In recognition of its solution, Evina has received all the industry’s leading awards over the past two years, including the Global Carrier Billing Summit award for the best anti-fraud solution in 2020 and 2021 and the Juniper Award for the best financial transaction security solution in 2021.

Confidence in Evina and in the industry’s potential from US funds and historical investors

The €20 million fundraising will allow Evina to accelerate its commercial presence outside Europe, with the opening of offices abroad, and to strengthen its technical team with new talent, in order to consolidate its position as a leader in the world of financial services for telecom operators.

The round was led by New York-based Radian Capital with the support of Evina’s historical investors including 50 partners, Saas Partners and Id4VC.

“Telecom Operators are in a very strong position to offer the next generation of financial service products. And while they currently possess much of what they need – embedded customer base, access to phones, known identities, financial performance, and bank account credentials – these operators still lack the security capabilities necessary to fight the most sophisticated fraud attempts. This is why we are so excited to back the team at Evina. They bring ‘bank security’ capabilities to these Telcos that allows them to operate in 2021 and beyond.” enthused Jordan Bettman, founder of Radian Capital.

Learn more about Evina at: https://www.evina.com/

Vodacom and Evina unite to fight mobile fraud

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Vodacom, SA’s leading network has taken a major step forward in mobile user safety by partnering with cybersecurity for mobile payments company, Evina.

Mobile users in Africa’s most advanced economy will now join the ranks of the tens of millions of consumers globally that are protected daily by Evina’s payments technology.

In recent years, the South African mobile industry has attracted a large number of fraudsters leading to a substantial increase in user complaint rates. These frequent fraudulent attacks are due to the fact that a large number of the African population uses a cellular phone, especially as a mobile payment method. Fraudsters are never far from where mobile transactions are. In South Africa alone, the country fraud rate recorded by Evina’s fraud sensors was 23.53% with clickjacking being the most fraudulent technique used to defraud mobile users in the first quarter of 2021. This region is a playground for new and extremely sophisticated fraud techniques that are difficult to spot unless using advanced technology

In this context, Vodacom has partnered with Evina to secure mobile transactions via Evina’s set of anti-fraud solutions that include DCBprotect and Eyewitness. DCBprotect detects bots that attempt to make fraudulent transactions whereas Eyewitness records fraudulent behaviour on payment pages to give proof to Vodacom’s partners of any bot-related activity.

Evina offers the most advanced cybersecurity technology for mobile payments and currently blocks over 16 million transactions in more than 70 countries worldwide. Evina is a recognized player in the mobile ecosystem and has been awarded various prestigious accolades such as the Best Financial Clearing Solution from Juniper Research and Best Carrier Billing Fraud Solution at the Global Carrier Billing Summit 2020.

David Lotfi, CEO & Founder of Evina: “We strive to work with mobile players that share our vision of fraud being a serious issue that needs to be dealt with – and soon. By integrating our anti-fraud solution into its operations, Vodacom with its large African network of mobile users, has confirmed that it too shares our values and wishes to create a fraud-free mobile payment ecosystem. This makes deploying the best technology worldwide, for the protection of South African mobile users, effortless.”

“The protection of our customers against all forms of fraudulent activity is our top priority. We are constantly striving to eradicate any potential mobile fraud on our network by updating and enhancing our controls to give customers peace of mind whilst enjoying seamless connectivity through their mobile phones. Introducing DCBprotect as solution is testament to our efforts to stay ahead of fraudsters and create a fraud free digital environment. We believe that early detection and blocking of any form of criminality on our network is in the interest of our customers and ultimately the Vodacom brand” said Mariam Cassim Chief Officer of Vodacom Financial and Digital Services.

Evina’s anti-fraud mission continues with TrafficScreener

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

 

Paris, May 10, 2021

Evina, the leading specialist in cybersecurity for mobile payments, has unveiled a new tool that extends the anti-fraud protection throughout the entire monetization flow, starting from the source of traffic.

The Paris-headquartered firm with operations in Europe, the Middle East and 15 African countries says TrafficScreener helps merchants master mobile traffic monetization by detecting fake visits.

After creating Evina DCBprotect, the market’s best anti-fraud solution to block bots at the time of payment, Evina now leverages the same cutting-edge technology to detect bots as they arrive on a merchants page.

According to Farid Taha, Chief Customer Officer at Evina: “When dealing with a CPC (cost per click) model, merchants need to know what type of click – fraudulent or authentic – is leading to their webpage. This has long been a blind spot when dealing with ad traffic and it’s why Evina created a tool that provides visibility on all visits following ad clicks.”

Mr Taha elaborates by explaining that, in mobile traffic monetization, the objective of merchants is to optimize their media buying. This is done by evaluating traffic sources via cost per click, click through rates, conversion rates and invalid clicks. Effective media buying depends on reliable data analytics and when there is a lot of undetected fraud in the form of bots making click-throughs, the decision-making process becomes skewed.

For more information, please contact Evina at https://info.evina.com/trafficscreener/contact-us

“With TrafficScreener, the real conversion rate is revealed through the detection of fake visits. This means merchants can decrease fraudulent traffic, boost conversion rates and ultimately increase their revenue,” adds Mr Taha.

This new product represents the flip-side of Evina DCBprotect which stops bots from making payment attempts. Now, traffic monetization can be mastered while fraudulent payments by bots are similarly prevented. While DCBprotect protects the payment page from bots, Traffic Screener detects bots that derive directly from the banner ads. By revealing real traffic and real conversation rates, merchants can optimize their mobile monetization activities. The aim is to reduce the 20% of budget merchants lose when they acquire fake traffic.

Specifically, TrafficScreener enables merchants to receive real figures that reflect the quality of their traffic. Healthier traffic sources can be rapidly identified while fraudulent ones can be quickly cut off. The product even enables merchants to be reimbursed for fraudulent traffic as Evina can provide proof of bot-based activities. Finally, merchants gain a competitive advantage and higher conversion rates by accessing valuable data analytics that enable smarter decision-making.

Thanks to over 15 years of R&D in cybersecurity for mobile payments, Evina’s anti-fraud technology now analyzes more than 16 million transactions per day worldwide. Some 99.94% of fraudulent transactions are detected, with a 0.06% false positive rate recorded, and less than 100ms latency.

Evina’s DCBprotect flagship anti-fraud offering protects mobile transactions by employing anti-fraud sensors to enable mobile network operators, payment gateways and merchants to transform fraud into a manageable phenomenon.

Evina’s primary objective is to strengthen cybersecurity practices by informing MNOs and players that make up the mobile ecosystem on the inner workings of fraud to better protect mobile users and businesses.

Together with leading mobile industry associations such as MEF and the GSMA, Evina is helping to create a mobile ecosystem built on trust and transparency and underpinned by smart solutions that create prosperity.

Evina regularly produces case studies with renowned MNOs, updates on the latest types of fraudulent techniques, and reports that provide market players with information on country fraud rates, the most common regional fraud techniques, and the trending malicious apps.

 

Website:  https://www.evina.com/

Twitter: @EvinaTech

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/evina/

Juniper Research recognizes Evina as the gold winner in Security and Fraud Innovation

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Evina, the leading specialist in cybersecurity for mobile payment has received the gold award in the Security and Fraud Innovation category at The Future Digital Awards by Juniper Research, the top analyst firm in the mobile and digital tech sector.

This award is the result of Evina’s cutting-edge technology – above all industry standards – that allows mobile network operators, payment gateways, and merchants to fend off fraud and increase their revenue while doing so.

This recognition highlights the crucial role Evina’s cutting-edge technology plays in securing markets. David Lotfi, CEO of Evina says “At Evina, our mission isn’t to only stop fraud, we strive to create a healthier ecosystem that unlocks more efficient payment flows and new business opportunities for all market players.”

Evina’s gold win shines a light on what the future of cybersecurity holds. The anti-fraud market can no longer function without high-tech tools that know how to differentiate between bots or humans.

Evina has dedicated more than 15 years to develop the most advanced cybersecurity technology for mobile payment. Evina offers an ultrahigh definition 3D footprint that captures online fraudulent behaviour, edge computing that treats and stores data closest to the end user, and a global money honeypot network in more than 70 countries that attracts fraudsters and reverse-engineers their mechanisms. The innovation doesn’t stop there. The Cyber Threat Intelligence analyzes threats coming from all sources, including the dark web, and the machine learning is continuously fed with over 16 million transactions analyzed every day.

The cutting-edge technology allows to detect 99.8% of fraudulent transactions, decrease complaint rates, and increase the number of legitimate transactions. Evina’s passionate team of engineers and extensive database are what make the cybersecurity firm the best anti-fraud tool on the market. This award demonstrates that Evina has become a major international player, alongside long-standing Juniper award winners such Microsoft, Paypal, and Amazon, in the cybersecurity anti-fraud realm.

Evina: The DCB Story and Proximus Case Study

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Article written by Evina

THE DCB STORY HAS A BEGINNING AND AN END YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW

Mobile operators the world over will recognise the beginning of the story we outline below. Few, however, ever pay attention to how it ends. Let’s begin…

Our story starts in those early, euphoric days of Direct Carrier Billing. Back then, DCB seemed to be the ideal business opportunity for cash-hungry Mobile Network Operators experiencing the effects of declining Average Revenue Per User.

DCB appeared easy to implement, with high margins, and was very much in demand by merchants for its high acquisition rates. Suddenly, mobile operators were payment operators and the sky seemed to be the limit.

Unfortunately, the rash of consumer complaints that followed this honeymoon period very quickly exploded the payments bubble. Anxious to preserve their image and tired of dealing with complaints, the MNOs saw no choice but to severely restrict the use of DCB.

Now this is where many operators believe the story ends and that’s a real tragedy. DCB is far from just another empty pot of gold in a long list of mobile mirages.

Testimony to this is the fact that some forward-thinking MNOs recognised DCB for the promising mobile opportunity that it remained and decided to see where they could go with it.

These innovators blazed a trail and reaped the rewards. Their experiments with refining DCB saw their complaint rates collapse and their revenues increase sharply. We saw this with Proximus in Belgium and Bouygues in France. So, what happened and how did they do it?

Firstly, these operators clearly identified the problem which is the proper starting point in successfully overcoming any challenge. They realised that high complaint rates were not, most of the time, due to dishonest merchants or payment aggregators fleecing an efficient payment system.

Quite the opposite. It turned out that merchants and aggregators were likewise the victims of massive fraud. While fraud is to be expected in any monetary system, the good news is that it is not an insurmountable problem. It can be managed in DCB, just as it is managed in the credit card ecosystem.

Secondly, successful MNOs like the two mentioned above recognise that only fraud experts can beat fraudsters. And we’re not talking about just any, run-of-the-mill experts. Too many generalist companies sell what should be anti-fraud solutions offered by specialists. Even fraudsters sell anti-fraud solutions. Clearly, this is untenable.

In order to be properly secured, MNOs need to be protected by a specialist anti-fraud expert that meets three essential criteria:
·      Independence – The solution cannot belong to an advertiser so there is never any doubt as to why a transaction is validated or refused.
·      Cybersecurity focus – Too many players in the sector are unable to do all the services they provide equally well.
·      Expertise in fraud – The world of mobile payment fraud is a unique environment that requires specific expertise that can only be the result of extended practical experience and serious R&D.

By collaborating with Evina, Proximus and Bouygues soon realised their new specialist anti-fraud provider ticked all the boxes above. The result was that, for them, DCB became the wonderful opportunity it was meant to be from the very beginning.

To explain to all operators how to take full advantage of DCB, and make it a source of substantial profit, we have just published a case study detailing our collaboration with Proximus, including a study of the impact on their revenues and their complaint rate.

It can be freely downloaded here: https://docs.evina.com/case-study-proximus-x-evina

This case study reinforces one of our strongest convictions: by approaching fraud in the right way, DCB can be transformed from the payment method of the past to that of the future.