Reprise Hosting ( http://www.reprisehosting.com/ ) deployed a new sophisticated fraud review system and enabled instant setup on select OpenVZ and Xen VPS hosting plans. Instant account activation is a highly sought aspect of hosting services—24 hour account setup times are no longer the norm as hosting needs become increasingly dynamic and “on-demand” in nature. However, rampant fraud and the specter of charge backs often prevent web hosts from instantly activating accounts until a manual fraud review can take place.
Our customers have long asked for instant setup on their accounts,” commented Jeff Michaels from Reprise Hosting. “Our customers have tight schedules and often need upgrades or new services deployed instantly. Extended setup times translate into a loss in productivity. We’ve developed an automated order review system that is sufficiently accurate in identifying fraud that we can now offer instant account activation.
Unlike other fraud review systems, Reprise Hosting’s system evaluates whether or not the IP address of a new customer belongs to a consumer ISP (e.g., Comcast) or a commercial datacenter.
We’ve found that analyzing an order by IP geo-location alone is insufficient. Fraudsters can use proxy servers to make themselves appear as if they’re located in the same area as the address info on a stolen credit card. However, these proxies are often run from IP blocks associated with datacenters, as opposed to a consumer IP blocks operated by companies such as Comcast. By flagging orders originating from unusual commercial IP blocks, we can more accurately identify fraud.
