NYC No. 1 In E-Commerce Fraud

If you're conducting online transactions in New York, New York, then you are most at risk of fraud, according to a new study.

ThreatMetrix sampled nearly 1 billion transactions handled by U.S. e-commerce vendors during the first quarter of this year to measure the hot spots for fraud. The security vendor scored each transaction as either low-, medium-, or high-risk; merchants reject what they detect to be high-risk transactions, and perform a manual review of what they detect as medium-risk.

New York City came in first with the most online fraud risk, followed by Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Omaha, Neb., Dallas, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Lexington, Ken. New York City was one-and-a-half times more likely to be at risk for online e-commerce than Atlanta, and twice as likely compared with Chicago.

"As fraudsters grow more sophisticated and expand globally, it's only natural that large cities with international profiles, easy access to shipping, and high connectivity rates will become breeding grounds for new generations of cyberthreats, including both fraud and malware," said Alisdair Faulkner, chief products officer for ThreatMetrix.

Faulkner said New York City, Chicago, and L.A. are a "gold mine" for cybercriminals looking for identities, passwords, and credit cards to steal. "We would expect to see a highly connected city like San Francisco rank higher, but perhaps the relatively substantial penetration of Apple devices, which are largely seen to be less vulnerable to malware, explains its relatively low ranking," he said.

Miami, Seattle, Austin, Texas, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., San Diego, Raleigh, N.C., Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Nashville, Tenn., and Philadelphia round out the top 20 most risky cities for online fraud.

Meanwhile, ThreatMetrix plans to also issue a top list of international cities where online fraud originates.

Have a comment on this story? Please click "Add Your Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.