US retail federation updates its retail fraud taxonomy
The National Retail Federation has updated its Retail Fraud Taxonomy, a guide for analyzing fraud activity across retail environments.
As ways of committing fraud in retail have become more sophisticated and diverse, the new guidance has been developed collaboratively by the NRF, Target Corporation and the Chertoff Group.
Commenting on the new documentation, the NRF VP of AI and technology policy, Caroline Reppert, explained: “Retail fraud has evolved: It is sophisticated, technology-driven and increasingly affecting different teams across business operations.”
Reppert, who is also director of the NRF’s Center for Digital Risk & Innovation, added: “A common fraud taxonomy is the foundation of effective collaboration. By giving retailers, technology providers, financial institutions, law enforcement and policymakers a shared language to describe fraud, NRF’s Retail Fraud Taxonomy improves stakeholders’ ability to share information, identify emerging threats quickly and drive more targeted, effective solutions.”
The Taxonomy is a knowledge base of retail fraud and abuse techniques derived from real-world observations, aimed at enhancing the industry’s ability to define, understand, prepare for, mitigate and detect fraud.
In standardizing how fraud techniques, behaviors, mitigations and detection strategies are described and understood, it serves as an effective tool for education, communication, security assessments, team exercises and resource prioritization.
Today’s fraud actors operate across both physical and digital environments. These groups quickly adapt tactics, share knowledge online, use automation and anonymity tools, and often specialize in different stages of fraud operations.
This knowledge base enables organizations to better understand how fraudsters operate, how attacks progress through various stages of execution, and where defensive controls can most effectively disrupt fraudulent activity.
The Taxonomy also helps organizations communicate more consistently, improve coordination across teams, share intelligence at scale and strengthen fraud detection and disruption efforts across the broader retail ecosystem.
You can download the full report here.
Earlier this week, NRF data showed how sales grew for the ninth consecutive month. Read Watch Insider’s story HERE:
