Composable Phone Portability Checks: Preventing Fraud

Combat SIM Swap FraudPhone number portability, while convenient, introduces significant fraud risks like SIM swapping. Implementing robust checks is crucial to protect user accounts and sensitive data.

Real-time Verification is KeyEffective fraud prevention requires real-time checks on phone number status, including carrier changes and potential porting attempts, to identify suspicious activity immediately.

Layered Security ApproachCombining phone verification with other identity checks, such as liveness detection and device intelligence, creates a strong, multi-faceted defense against sophisticated fraudsters.

Didit's Modular AdvantageDidit provides composable Phone & Email Verification, allowing businesses to integrate advanced number portability checks seamlessly into their existing fraud prevention workflows with a flexible, AI-native platform.

Understanding Phone Number Portability and Its Fraud Implications

Phone number portability, a feature allowing users to retain their phone numbers when switching mobile carriers, has been a boon for consumer convenience. However, this flexibility also presents a significant vulnerability for businesses and their customers: SIM swap fraud. In a SIM swap attack, fraudsters trick a mobile carrier into porting a victim's phone number to a SIM card they control. Once they have control of the number, they can intercept one-time passcodes (OTPs) and other authentication messages, gaining access to bank accounts, email, social media, and other sensitive online services.

The impact of SIM swap fraud can be devastating, leading to financial losses, identity theft, and severe reputational damage for businesses that fail to adequately protect their users. Traditional phone verification methods, which primarily rely on sending an OTP to the registered number, are insufficient if that number has been compromised through a SIM swap. This necessitates a more sophisticated approach, one that incorporates real-time checks on the portability status of a phone number.

The Power of Composable Phone Portability Checks

To effectively combat SIM swap and other phone number-related fraud, businesses need to move beyond basic OTP verification. Composable phone portability checks involve integrating various data points and verification steps to assess the risk associated with a phone number's recent activity. This includes:

• Carrier Change Detection: Identifying if a phone number has recently switched carriers, which can be a red flag for a potential SIM swap.
• Number Type Analysis: Distinguishing between mobile, landline, and VoIP numbers, as VoIP numbers can sometimes be associated with higher fraud risk. Didit's Phone Verification provides this capability, detecting carrier type (mobile or landline).
• Disposable Number Identification: Detecting if a phone number is a temporary or disposable number, often used by fraudsters to avoid traceability. Didit's platform can identify and act upon disposable numbers.
• Risk Scoring: Aggregating all these data points to generate a comprehensive risk score for the phone number, allowing businesses to make informed decisions.

By leveraging these checks, businesses can implement dynamic risk-based authentication. For instance, if a phone number shows recent portability activity, additional verification steps might be triggered, such as requiring biometric authentication (e.g., 1:1 Face Match) or engaging manual review, rather than relying solely on an OTP.

Integrating Phone Checks into a Layered Fraud Prevention Strategy

Effective fraud prevention is rarely a single solution; it's a layered strategy. Phone number portability checks are a critical component, but they are most powerful when combined with other identity verification and fraud detection tools. For example, when a user attempts to log in or perform a high-value transaction:

• First, a Phone & Email Verification check can confirm the user still controls the registered phone number, including a portability check.
• Simultaneously, Didit's Passive & Active Liveness can ensure the person interacting is a real, present human, countering deepfake and presentation attacks.
• Didit's ID Verification (OCR, MRZ, barcodes) can be used for initial onboarding to verify the physical identity document.
• Device intelligence and IP analysis can identify suspicious access patterns or devices.
• For high-risk scenarios, Didit's AML Screening & Monitoring can be employed to check against watchlists.

This composable approach allows businesses to build highly customized and resilient fraud prevention workflows, adapting to evolving threats without over-burdening legitimate users. The ability to blocklist specific phone numbers that have been identified in previous fraudulent activities, a feature available in Didit's console, further strengthens this defense, preventing repeat offenders from compromising new accounts.

How Didit Helps

Didit is at the forefront of providing composable identity solutions, including robust Phone & Email Verification with advanced portability checks, designed to empower businesses in their fight against fraud. Our AI-native platform offers a modular architecture, enabling seamless integration of various identity primitives via clean APIs or a no-code Business Console.

With Didit's Phone Verification, you can:

• Verify user phone numbers through OTP, ensuring legitimate contact information.
• Detect carrier changes, identify disposable numbers, and analyze number types (mobile/landline/VoIP) to assess risk.
• Leverage advanced risk assessment features, including the ability to automatically decline verifications if a number is detected as disposable or has been blocklisted.
• Integrate these checks into orchestrated workflows, allowing for dynamic responses based on risk levels.
• Utilize our blocklist feature to automatically decline verification sessions that match previously identified fraudulent phone numbers, documents, faces, or emails, preventing identity fraud and duplicate accounts.

Didit's commitment to a developer-first approach means you get an instant sandbox and public documentation to get started quickly. We also offer Free Core KYC, a pay-per-successful check model, and no setup fees, making advanced fraud prevention accessible and scalable for businesses of all sizes. Our solutions are global by design, ensuring you can protect your users wherever they are.

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