3 Ways reCAPTCHA Enterprise Protects eCommerce Websites

Miles Hischier

Updated November 18, 2023

Published August 30, 2022

For over 10 years, reCAPTCHA has protected websites from fraud. Beginning as a widget with letters, words, and objects to identify, reCAPTCHA V1 and reCAPTCHA V2 identified bots and prevented them from accessing website functions.

The next edition—reCAPTCHA V3—served the same purpose, but did so without any user interruption. No interaction with a widget was required; reCAPTCHA V3 worked in the background by monitoring behavioral analytics.

Now, there is reCAPTCHA Enterprise, Google’s most up-to-date website security solution. It retains the frictionless user experience of reCAPTCHA V3 while adding numerous additional features.

Many of these features are especially helpful for eCommerce platforms who rely on reCAPTCHA Enterprise for defense against malicious actors. Below, learn about the top three reCAPTCHA Enterprise eCommerce features.

1. Credential Stuffing Attacks

Credential stuffing is a form of attack that utilizes mass login attempts in order to validate stolen username and password pairs.

Usernames and passwords are often difficult for customers to remember. As a result, customers tend to use the same username and password pairs across multiple websites. When one of these websites are compromised and their credentials leaked, there is a strong risk of malicious actors attempting to use these credentials to access accounts on other websites.

reCAPTCHA Enterprise detects and stops Credential Stuffing attacks by recognizing bot activity as part of its behavioral analytics risk scoring system. This system identifies suspicious behavior without interrupting the user experience. In short, it identifies, blocks, and alerts the website owner of credential stuffing attempts without creating barriers for legitimate users.

eCommerce site owners can further defend against credential stuffing attacks by utilizing reCAPTCHA Enterprise’s advanced features such as Multi-Factor Authentication and Password Leak Detection.

2. Carding

Carding occurs when multiple payment authorization attempts are used in order to verify stolen credit card information.

Consumers across the internet save their credit card information on websites for ease of use when they make purchases. Unfortunately, this information is sometimes stolen and can then be bought and sold via the dark web or other illicit markets. Once this information is obtained, bot resources are employed, allowing fraudsters to bulk-verify the payment details on eCommerce websites.

eCommerce website owners can prevent Carding by implementing reCAPTCHA Enterprise on every webpage that accepts payment. New and unusually-behaving customers, smaller checkout baskets, and users who skip directly to providing payment information may be assessed as suspicious.

These characteristics are taken into account as part of reCAPTCHA Enterprise’s anti-fraud scoring system. Your team can choose an appropriate blocking threshold based upon your eCommerce platform’s typical user behavior and risk factors.

3. Bulk Account Creation

Bulk Account Creation severely damages eCommerce sites. These accounts can be used to post spam, skew SEO, and submit falsified reviews and surveys, all of which affect your company’s reputation and success.

After reCAPTCHA Enterprise is implemented for account creation, the adaptive risk analysis engine prevents automated software from executing bulk account creation. It accomplishes this by recognizing the abusive behavior and giving the session an accordingly low risk score via the anti-fraud scoring system. When this score drops below your threshold, access to account creation and other actions on your eCommerce site are blocked.

The scoring system’s threshold for user admission is based on normal account creation activity for your website, as well as information gathered by reCAPTCHA Enterprise’s machine learning about typical behavior across the internet. By employing defense against Bulk Account Creation, your team can defend against fraudulent and reputation-harming activity across your website.