Geographic Discre By analyzing the country code associat with a phone number, businesses can gain insights that help identify suspicious activity, mitigate risks, and enhance overall security.
Here’s how the “phone number country code” acts as a layer in fraud prevention:
Scenario: A user attempts to create an account or initiate a high-value transaction from an IP address in one country (e.g., USA), but the provid phone number has a “phone number country code” from a vastly different and potentially high-risk region (e.g., a country known for online fraud).
Fraud Indicator: This mismatch can be a strong indicator of fraudulent activity, suggesting the use of a VPN, proxy, or a stolen identity/number. It flags the transaction for additional verification or blocking.
Identifying High Risk Geographies Geographic Discre
Scenario: Certain countries or regions may have a statistically higher incidence of specific types of online fraud (e.g., phishing, account takeovers, fake registrations).
Fraud Indicator: By analyzing the “phone number country code” during onboarding or transactional processes, businesses can assign a higher risk score to numbers originating from these regions, triggering more stringent identity verification proc ures or limiting certain functionalities.
Detecting Virtual/Disposable Numbers:
Scenario: While a carrier lookup identifies VoIP, combining this with country code analysis can further refine risk assessment. Some virtual phone number dataset providers specialize in certain countries, and if a number from an unexpect country code for a virtual number is present , it might be suspicious.
Fraud Indicator: Although not directly reveal by the country code itself, pattern analysis bas on observ fraud originating from specific “phone number country code” + virtual line type combinations can be powerful.
Combatting Account Takeover
(ATO) and SIM Swap differentiat set of messages that are consistently communicat Fraud:
Scenario: In SIM swap fraud, fraudsters port a legitimate user’s belgium numbers number to a SIM they control. While carrier lookup is critical here, the initial account setup might involve numbers from unexpect country codes.