Iovation, a company that markets anti-fraud software to online game operators (and online dating sites) claims to have blocked over ten thousand fraudulent transactions per day out of a round-figure-billion over a year. They don't actually say how many of those billion transactions were actually fraudulent, so we must smilingly acknowledge that while their quoted figures contain some attractive round numbers, they don't actually provide any useful information on their actual success rate.
Iovation's patented anti-fraud system (United States Patent 20080040802) basically involves a small piece of software dropped onto a user's machine that provides a unique system fingerprint or device identifier that can be queried alongside transactions. Unfortunately, in our experience (Linden Lab used to use essentially this same sort of system for severe user bans for years, but ultimately had to discontinue it) this kind of system is relatively easily circumvented by the determined or knowledgeable (at least without the most egregious rootkitting), and also only prevents subsequent frauds, after an initial fraud is detected by other means.
Nonetheless, with an increasing focus in the online gaming world towards non-subscription-based transaction models, fraud prevention/reduction is occupying increasingly large amounts of attention from MMO/VW operators and developers who are looking for solutions.
[via PlayNoEvil]
