Adjustment of knowledge-based authentication

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9633322-B1
Application number	US-201414208595-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Mar 13, 2014
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Apr 25, 2017
Grant date	Apr 25, 2017

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for adjustment of difficulty level, quantity, and/or other parameters of knowledge-based authentication. The questions may be asked of a consumer based on one or more generated risk scores associated with the consumer's behavior, which may be derived from information received from the consumer, a representative responsible for entering information regarding the consumer, and/or from the consumer's computing device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer system for setting authentication requirements for a consumer associated with a consumer computing device, the computing system comprising:
a consumer computing device through which financial account information of a consumer is accessible;
an authentication server in communication with a plurality of electronic devices to provide authentication of users of respective electronic devices;
a financial services server in communication with the consumer computing device, the financial services server storing information regarding financial accounts issued to respective consumers by a financial service provider;
wherein the financial services server executes software instructions to:
receive, from the consumer computing device via the Internet, a request to open a new financial account with the financial service provider;
transmit device identification information gathering code to the consumer computing device, the device identification information gathering code comprising one or more of device-aware parameter-submitting code, browser information gathering code, or device information gathering code;
receive device identification information associated with the consumer computing device gathered through the device identification information gathering code, the device identification information comprising one or more of:
device ID,
device location,
browser type,
browser time zone,
browser language settings,
proxy settings,
stated IP address, or
real IP address; and

transmit, to the authentication server, a request to set authentication requirements for the consumer and information allowing the authentication server to communicate with the consumer computing device;

wherein the authentication server:
receives, from the financial services server via the Internet, the request to set authentication requirements for the consumer in response to the request transmitted from the consumer computing device to open the new financial account and device identification information associated with the consumer computing device, wherein an identity of the consumer is unknown to the financial service provider;
determines a real geolocation of the consumer computing device based on one or more of current GPS data or historical GPS data from the consumer computing device;
derives one or more behaviors of the consumer based on at least the device identification information, the one or more behaviors comprising one or more of:
a comparison between a masked geolocation indicating a location of a proxy server through which the device identification information is received and the determined real geolocation of the consumer computing device, or
a comparison between the determined real geolocation of the consumer computing device and a browser geolocation indicated by a browser executing on the consumer computing device;

calculates a fraud risk score of the consumer based at least on the one or more derived behaviors of the consumer, wherein respective derived behaviors indicative of potential fraud cause the fraud risk score to increase and respective derived behaviors not indicative of potential fraud cause the fraud risk score to decrease;
determines authentication requirements for the consumer based on the calculated fraud risk score, wherein the authentication requirements indicate one or more of:
a number of authentication questions the consumer is required to correctly answer,
types of authentication questions the consumer is required to answer, or
a percentage of authentication questions that must be correctly answered;

transmits one or more authentication questions to the consumer computing device in accordance with the determined authentication requirements, and receives corresponding responses from the consumer computing device;
determines, based on the authentication requirements for the consumer and the responses from the consumer computing device, whether the consumer is authenticated; and
transmits, to the financial service server, an indication of whether the consumer is authenticated.

2. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the fraud risk score comprises a risk level.

3. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the fraud risk score comprises a risk factor.

4. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the request to open a new financial account for a consumer is received from a consumer.

5. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the request to open a new financial account for a consumer is received from a service provider.

6. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more behaviors of the consumer is derived based on one or more of:
a frequency of attempts to open a new financial account;
whether requests for a new financial account for a same consumer originate from more than one computing device;
whether the consumer computing device has a device IP address that matches a known IP address associated with a high fraud risk score; or
whether a submitted password matches a unique password known to be related to a high fraud risk score.

7. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the financial services server further executes software instructions to:
embed instructions to collect the device identification information; and
process information collected from the embedded instructions.

8. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the authentication server further:
upon a determination that the consumer has a fraud risk score above a first threshold, requests the consumer to provide information comprising at least one of: address, password, birthday, social security number;
records the information about the consumer and the device identification information;
upon a determination that more information needs to be collected from the consumer, requests the consumer to provide information; and
upon a determination that more information does not need to be collected from the consumer, generates an error message to the consumer.

9. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the authentication server further:
upon a determination that a total number of authentication attempts exceeds a first threshold, sends an alert to a victim of authentication fraud, the alert comprising information regarding the total number of authentication attempts; and
upon a determination that the total number of authentication attempts exceeds a second threshold, temporarily locks the account of the victim of authentication fraud.

10. A system comprising:
a computer-readable storage medium for the financial services server comprising computer-executable instructions that direct the financial services server to:
store information regarding financial accounts issued to respective consumers by a financial service provider;
receive, from a consumer computing device via the Internet, a request to open a new financial account with the financial service provider;
transmit device identification information gathering code to the consumer computing device, the device identification information gathering code comprising one or more of device-aware parameter-submitting code, browser information gathering code, or device information gathering code;
receive device identification information associated with the consumer computing device gathered through the device identification information gathering code, the device identification information comprising one or more of:
device ID,
device location,
browser type,
browser time zone,
browser language settings,
proxy settings,
stated IP address, or
real IP address; and

transmit, to the authentication server, a request to set authentication requirements for the consumer and information allowing the authent

Assignees

• Consumerinfo Com Inc

Inventors

• Burger Michael

Classifications

• G06Q20/4014

  Identity check for transactions · CPC title

• G06Q20/405 Primary

  Establishing or using transaction specific rules · CPC title

• G06Q10/0635 Primary

  Risk analysis of enterprise or organisation activities · CPC title

• G06Q20/4016

  involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing · CPC title