With the recent Bitcoin hacking debacle making front-page news around the world, many are looking at other e-currency providers and wondering if the same thing could happen elsewhere. Immediately, the online gaming industry – specifically online poker and casino sites – come to the forefront as potential high-risk targets.
Enter ThreatMetrix, a company that offers market-leading advance fraud prevention and context-based security solutions. The company announced this past week that they are entering into the US gaming market in New Jersey.
Soon-to-Be Licensed in New Jersey
ThreatMetrix recently became a registered vendor with the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. This allows the firm to conduct business with the newly established Atlantic City-based online casinos. Their hope is to provide industry-defining fraud detection and other security solutions to these companies to ensure US-based players can feel confident regarding the safety and security of their online funds.
About ThreatMetrix
The goal for ThreatMetrix is to assist online casinos fight cyber crime risks, specific to payment fraud and account takeover. Their intelligence network processes and analyzes more than 500 million monthly transactions across 160 million active user accounts.
Based in San Jose, California, the company believes that they are uniquely positioned to service online gaming sites by providing context-based authentication, as well as the ability to protect against cyber crimes online and on mobile devices. They say that they believe the key to making online gaming successful in the US is an effective security platform.
Specifically, ThreatMetrix stated that the two most prominent cyber crime risks that online casinos face is payment fraud (stolen credit card information which is then used to gamble online), and account takeover (malware used to steal log in information). They claim that their Global Trust Intelligence Network is the largest trusted identity network in the world.
What They Won’t Be Protecting Against
While layman might see this as a good sign, the team at ThreatMetrix only handles one piece of the overall security equation for online poker and casino sites in the United States. Although they will be monitoring for fraudulent transactions and stolen account behavior, they do not address concerns regarding hacking per se. However, all sites operating in the United States must pass certain criteria for Internet security standards, using heavy firewall rules and appropriate encryption on all interactions.
How This Impacts Players
This announcement should be received with muted, but positive, enthusiasm from poker players. Having a third-party offer an additional layer of security to ensure players’ accounts are being monitored to avoid hijackings should help ease the minds of many. In addition, having industry-leading vendors flock to the emerging online gaming market in the United States is seen as a positive for those hoping that legislation continues to move forward.
As more layers of security will be added, the alleged risks that many detractors point to as reasons for stopping legalization are reduced in relevance. This should also help prevent a major security incident with players, which – were it to occur – would receive just as much attention as the recent Bitcoin fiasco did, and that would certainly derail efforts to legalize games in other states.
