Date Published: August 2018
Comments Due:
Email Questions to:
Author(s)
William Newhouse (NIST), Brian Johnson (MITRE), Sarah Kinling (MITRE), Blaine Mulugeta (MITRE), Kenneth Sandlin (MITRE)
Announcement
According to a recent independent analysis, e-commerce fraud increased by 30 percent in 2017, compared to 2016, as malicious actors shift from using stolen credit card data in stores at the checkout counter to using stolen credit card data for fraudulent online shopping. Because online retailers cannot utilize all of the benefits of improved credit card technology, they should consider implementing stronger authentication to reduce the risk of e-commerce fraud.
In collaboration with stakeholders in the retail sector, the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) is publishing a draft practice guide that explores risk-based scenarios that use multifactor authentication (MFA) to help reduce fraudulent online purchases. In the project’s example implementations, if certain risk elements (contextual data related to the transaction) are exceeded that could indicate an increased likelihood of fraudulent activity during the online shopping session, the purchaser will be prompted to present another distinct authentication factor—something the purchaser has—in addition to the username and password.
The NCCoE’s practice guide, Multifactor Authentication for E-Commerce, can help organizations reduce online fraudulent purchases, show customers that the organization is committed to its security, help avoid system-administrator-account takeover through phishing, and assist organizations to implement the example solutions by using the step-by-step guide.
As retailers in the United States have adopted chip-and-signature and chip-and-PIN (personal identification number) point-of-sale (POS) security measures, there have been increases in fraudulent online card-not-present (CNP) electronic commerce (e-commerce) transactions. The risk of increased fraudulent online shopping became more widely known following the adoption of chip-and-PIN technology that increased security at the POS in Europe.
The NCCoE at NIST built a laboratory environment to explore methods to implement multifactor authentication (MFA) for online retail environments for the consumer and the e-commerce platform administrator. The NCCoE also implemented logging and reporting to display authentication-related system activity.
This NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide demonstrates to online retailers that it is possible to implement open standards-based technologies to enable Universal Second Factor (U2F) authentication at the time of purchase when risk thresholds are exceeded.
The example implementations outlined in this guide encourage online retailers to adopt effective MFA implementations by using standard components and custom applications that are composed of open-source and commercially available components.
As retailers in the United States have adopted chip-and-signature and chip-and-PIN (personal identification number) point-of-sale (POS) security measures, there have been increases in fraudulent online card-not-present (CNP) electronic commerce (e-commerce) transactions. The risk of increased...
See full abstract
As retailers in the United States have adopted chip-and-signature and chip-and-PIN (personal identification number) point-of-sale (POS) security measures, there have been increases in fraudulent online card-not-present (CNP) electronic commerce (e-commerce) transactions. The risk of increased fraudulent online shopping became more widely known following the adoption of chip-and-PIN technology that increased security at the POS in Europe.
The NCCoE at NIST built a laboratory environment to explore methods to implement multifactor authentication (MFA) for online retail environments for the consumer and the e-commerce platform administrator. The NCCoE also implemented logging and reporting to display authentication-related system activity.
This NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide demonstrates to online retailers that it is possible to implement open standards-based technologies to enable Universal Second Factor (U2F) authentication at the time of purchase when risk thresholds are exceeded.
The example implementations outlined in this guide encourage online retailers to adopt effective MFA implementations by using standard components and custom applications that are composed of open-source and commercially available components.
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Keywords
electronic commerce (e-commerce) security; internet shopping security; multifactor authentication (MFA)
Control Families
Access Control; Awareness and Training; Assessment, Authorization and Monitoring; Configuration Management; Identification and Authentication; Physical and Environmental Protection; Program Management; Risk Assessment; System and Communications Protection; System and Information Integrity
