Sonar Launches Service Identifying Compromised Customer Data

Fraud data sharing consortium Sonar has launched a new service that helps banks and FinTechs verify if their customer data has been compromised in a breach or used for fraudulent activities.

This new service, Red Flag, allows organizations to proactively check if an account’s credentials are exposed on the dark web, Sonar said in a Tuesday (July 9) press release.

The Red Flag service not only supports banks and FinTechs that have been directly impacted by breaches, but also protects other organizations, Ravi Loganathan, president of Sonar, said in the release.

“The average consumer has multiple financial accounts across banks and FinTechs,” Loganathan said. “When you consider that many people reuse passwords across accounts, a single breach can trigger extensive and far-reaching consequences.”

Red Flag is accessible at no charge to companies that join the Sonar data-sharing consortium as members, according to the release.

When using the service, all data shared under Red Flag adheres to Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) regulations, inquiries can be made using only minimal personally identifiable information (PII) and there’s no need to change the user’s existing risk technology stack — the service and signals can augment their existing processes, per the release. 

One of the founding members of Sonar, Sardine, is using the Red Flag service to protect its customers from the use of data stolen in recent financial data breaches.

“At Sardine, we incorporate Sonar’s Red Flag service, along with additional signals, to establish a more accurate risk score,” Soups Ranjan, CEO of Sardine, said in the release. “These signals include the use of proxies, emulators and discrepancies between IP location and physical address.”

Data extortion and ransomware attacks have had a substantial impact on businesses and marketplaces during the first half of 2024, PYMNTS reported July 4. 

PYMNTS Intelligence has found that 82% of eCommerce merchants endured cyber or data breaches in the last year, and 47% said the breaches resulted in both lost revenue and lost customers.

These merchants also said that outsourced fraud prevention methods correlate with fewer failed payments, according to “Fraud Management in Online Transactions,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Nuvei collaboration.