Dive Brief:

• Overall annual losses due to mobile fraud amounted to $240 million, while average annual loss was $92.3 million, according to a survey of businesses conducted by data security company RSA and mobile protection company TeleSign for corporate research and analysis firm J. Gold Associates. 

• Just 8% of the 250 businesses surveyed said they had no mobile-related fraud in the past year, while 34% said they’d lost as much as 5% of revenue, 14% said 10%, and 15% said they lost as much as 25% of revenue.

• 19% of the companies surveyed also said that 25% to 49% of their fraud incidents are due to mobile.

Dive Insight:

It looks like mobile fraud has arrived, with retailers taking the biggest hit. With the surge in mobile payments and mobile commerce, the problem will likely only grow, according to this study. As with point-of-sales systems, retailers appear to be dangerously ill equipped in this area.

"An uptick in online fraud resulting from today's environment of large-scale data breaches and security incidents is something TeleSign is seeing first-hand," says TeleSign CEO Steve Jillings. "With the shift to mobile e-commerce well underway, we know that hackers and fraud are never far behind. The report has businesses expecting a 47% growth rate in mobile revenues over the next few years. We believe this represents a green field for fraud incidents if security postures remain the same."