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Use of the Dempster–Shafer theory to detect account takeovers in mobile money transfer services

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Abstract

Advanced cyber-threats, specifically targeted to financial institutions, are growing in frequency and sophistication, both globally and in individual countries. To counter this trend, effective solutions are needed that are able to reliably and timely detect frauds across multiple channels that process millions of transactions per day. These security solutions are required to process logs produced by different systems and correlate massive amounts of information in real-time. In this paper, we propose an approach based on the Dempster–Shafer (DS) theory, that results in high performance of the detection process, i.e. high detection rates and low false positive rates. The approach is based on combining multiple (and heterogeneous) data feeds to get to a degree of belief that takes into account all the available evidence. The proposed approach has been validated with respect to a challenging demonstration case, specifically the detection of frauds performed against a mobile money transfer (MMT) service. An extensive experimental campaign has been conducted, using synthetic data generated by a simulator which closely mimics the behavior of a real system, from a major MMT service operator.

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Acknowledgments

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission within the context of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 313034 (Situation AWare Security Operation Center, SAWSOC Project). It has been also partially supported by the TENACE PRIN Project (No. 20103P34XC) funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, and by the Embedded Systems in critical domains POR Project (CUP B25B09000100007) funded by the Campania region in the context of the POR Campania FSE 2007–2013, Asse IV and Asse V.

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Correspondence to Salvatore D’Antonio.

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Coppolino, L., D’Antonio, S., Formicola, V. et al. Use of the Dempster–Shafer theory to detect account takeovers in mobile money transfer services. J Ambient Intell Human Comput 6, 753–762 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-015-0276-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-015-0276-9

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