I. ASSESSMENT OF THE STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
The acquisition of ThreatMetrix was sizeable slice of an active year for acquisitions by the parent organization RELX PLC. A total of 9 acquisitions were executed in the year 2018 alone. £580 million of the £978 million distributed was allocated to the acquisition of ThreatMetrix. The subsidiary LexisNexis performs over 100 million identity verification checks and over 100 billion customer and transaction screening requests annually across multiple industries. The acquisition compiled an additional 900 million anonymized user identities to deliver the intelligence of over 30 billion annual authentication and trust decisions to dicern fraud. As a result, LexisNexis now facilitates newly procured digital identity data to merge with its physical identity data set. Existing customers of LexisNexis in 2018 gained unprecedented access to products and solutions that provide a comprehensive view into identity. Customers were now able to allow their consumers frictionless access (ThreatMetrix, 2020).
As iterate updates to ThreatMetrix resume till this day, the consistency appears to be prominent. As of March 2020, LexisNexis further enhanced its panoramic portfolio of fraud detection and digital identity intelligence with the addition of behavioral biometrics (Goldman & Theobald, 2020). Behavioral Biometrics will enhance ThreatMetrix’s ability to distinguish between human and non-human account activity, profile fraudulent users, detect abnormalities, and confide in trusted users. LexisNexis needs are continuously being met, superseded, and prospered through the expansion of ThreatMetrix
LexisNexis preparedly accompanied this immeasurable success through the creation of a go-to-market team that conducted global sales and marketing. The go-to-market team, comprised of previous ThreatMetrix aides and LexisNexis colleagues, diligently consolidated physical and digital identity into a fraud prevention and identity management solution, to develop and expand their information into financial crime compliance and credit risk assessment for developing economies (Annual Report and Financial Statements 2018, 2019). The assets of RELX reciprocally increased significantly.
The benefits of doing so retained customer satisfaction, as consumers and employees of ThreatMetrix customers now experience an enterprise-level security solution that facilitates the verification and authentication processes. Intricacy to the extent of mouse movement, phone tilting, and typing speed now generate a risk score for customers. The transactions offered to consumers by ThreatMetrix users added an additional layer of security to achieve a more widespread digital identity (Weiss, 2020). To improve the product quality, LexisNexis incessantly monitors cybercrime report and statistics to direct focus on innovation. Sustaining the technology digests how LexisNexis are developing ThreatMetrix.
With the real-time determination of over 900 million ThreatMetrix anonymized user identities, the justification behind the project cost is deemed valuable. As data accrual has now evolved into a form currency, the purchase price tag merits a bargain. In the world of business intelligence, the purchasing power apart from innovation, is one of the few variables that inhibits an organization from being able to acquire such newfound currency. Uninterrupted advancement of technology broadens the sum of all available digital identity association which is driven by the data capabilities to process it through ThreatMetrix. The ability to sustain and protect consumer trust provides a selling point for customers, as consumers pose a concern about losing their own control over privacy. If that data is regulated and used to protect the interest of consumer demands, the potential types of data to be collected are immeasurable. Consumer research reflects valid concerns by individuals of their online privacy (Rose, Rober, & Rehse, 2017). Contrastingly, the same study indicates minimal behavioral reactive measures taken by these consumers. Therefore, the need for behavioral biometrics seems to be imminent.
LexisNexis appears to be following a niche focus focused competitive scope strategy. According to the director of market planning at LexisNexis, Jim Rice, explicitly states competition is aggressive for lower risk consumers. The organization contrastingly believes that possessing a transparent understanding of behavioral analysis is more accurate than consumer data when determining future customer behavior (LexisNexis Risk Solutions State of Risk Report Shows Better Marketing Practices Limit Risk for Communications and Media Service Companies, 2017). The harness of such risk preventative behavior allows LexisNexis to compete rigorously within the communication and media service industries to better pinpoint higher value, less risky prospects for their customers.
ThreatMetrix inclusively enhances the primary value activities of LexisNexis. The retained value through the procurement of digital identity is immense and the economies of scale carry a massive conceivable. In Europe, RELX PLC’s base of operations, a 22% annual growth rate resides (Rose, Rober, & Rehse, 2017) which discerns the assessment of potential profitability in the information industry. Inbound logistics were influenced with the attainment of ThreatMetrix and the massive databases and data that came along with it. Operations were enhanced with the acquisition. In 2018, LexisNexis claimed to have an 84% increase in fraud detection by using ThreatMetrix’s data and analysis (Annual Report and Financial Statements 2018, 2019). Merging the crowdsourced digital identity intelligence of daily consumer interactions with real-time deviation detection has alleviated the operations and augmented outbound logistics. Collaboration between the sales team and the acquisition delivered an elevated MVP with more accurate iterative bi-weekly updates and customer support. Competitive advantages with LexisNexis are always favorable as it is habitual for them to obtain competitive rivalry within the industry, consequently, eliminating the threat of new market entrants. Long term competitive advantage sustainability encompasses the reduction in bargaining power of customers, such as financial institutions and government agencies; as the intelligence and services provided offer an unprecedented ability to detect fraud and execute real time trust decisions among consumers. The bargaining power of LexisNexis increased as they are now able to unify decision analytics throughout the entire digital identity of someone.
As mentioned earlier, the latest follow up addition to ThreatMetrix has been behavioral biometrics. Monitoring unique patterns in consumer activity has been the prodigious innovative integration to further enhance the system. Smart phone behavior is now monitored to store the rotation and tilt of the phone. The frequency of the angle or whether it is held in landscape or portrait expands the digital footprint. Mouse behavior is examined through the movement around the page and the pattern is associated with the consumer. Similarly, the touchscreen behavior is analyzed through variables such as swipe speed and the shape of the finger used to navigate the screen. Typing speed and special keys on the keyboard will also become associated with one’s digital identity to enhance fraud detection capabilities (Goldman & Theobald, 2020). This contemporary intelligence provides an additional layer to customers by delivering systematic risk signals within account openings, high risk pages, and payment methods/portals. Behavioral biometrics are a future generation method of risk assessment and the algorithms distinguish unique user profiles. It was emphasized that the system will not capture passwords or high-risk identity dynamics to protect the privacy of users. “Differentiating between good and bad online behavior is harder than ever. Gathering device interaction data across multiple touchpoints in the online journey, however, helps build richer digital profiles,” said Kimberly Sutherland, vice president of fraud and identity strategy at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “As fraudsters continually adapt their strategies to bypass controls, security solutions must be able to distinguish between trustworthy and malicious users in real time, without adding unnecessary friction for good customers.”
With that being said, complete integration of the mechanism of digital identity to physical identity has not been comprehensively completed. LexisNexis are planning to enhance the machine learning algorithm to better predict fraud using ThreatMetrix. From the feedback received from customers such as insurance companies, they are planning to provide intelligence for them to assist in providing more accurate estimates (De Silva, 2020).
II. ASSESSMENT OF OVERALL CONDUCT
The measure of success is primarily determined through the acquisition and retainment of consumer information. This data is transitioned and augmented with correlation and precise coordination. Sensitive data that attributes to the comprehensiveness of digital footprints are the primary assets of LexisNexis, as growth rates of the data-intensive industry maintains a growth rate of 15% and is projected to gradually thrive (Rose, Rober, & Rehse, 2017). By that standard and the 60% scale of acquisition expenses ThreatMetrix occupied from the RELX PLC budget in 2018, the sophisticated system was an enormous triumph. This success is accompanied with the emphasis on LexisNexis’ rigorously aggressive approach towards start-up acquisitions. Therefore, collectively as a group of feeble learners, we agree that ThreatMetrix was a profound achievement. With ThreatMetrix, came its advanced digital identity network (DIN) that crowdsources over a million sensitive consumer interactions to bolster LexisNexis Risk Solutions (Annual Report and Financial Statements 2018, 2019).
An issue was encountered during the addition of the TrustDefender™ Cybercrime Protection platform, a software development kit for iOS, that posed potential exploitation vulnerability. The software failed to validate SSL certificates to ensure encryption provided by connections made over HTTP (Barth, 2017). An updated version was released promptly to address the issue. Another issue aroused succeeding the acquisition of the cloud based ThreatMetrix. Verifying an excess of 20 billion annual transactions depends on large data analytics to evaluate anomalous account activity. Real-time access warrants real-time reliable responses, high performance and low latency on a cultivating data center. ThreatMetrix data warehouses were opensource SQL based and inadequate, consequently costing them unhappy customers (CS ThreatMetrix, 2020). As a result, integration with the database company YellowBrick delivered a rapid interactive solution for website users at a lower cost. Extreme storage scalability, unique deployment options, advanced SQL analytics products and innovative processing data warehouses mitigated the issues faced by LexisNexis and the IS ThreatMetrix.
ThreatMetrix has undergone tremendous evolutionary stages and has established itself as a primary dynamic decision platform. Serving over 4000 customers, ThreatMetrix sufficiently detects cyber-attacks to conduct behavioral analysis of users distinguishing a human and an intruder (including bots) in real-time. Hidden proxies and VPNs are detected and backlogged to reveal true IP addresses and location during interactions. Cookies and private browsing mitigate risk even under severe bot attacks that imitate customer behavior. ThreatMetrix is doing its intended objective and superseding the anticipated potential through immaculate iterations and experiments. Correspondingly, LexisNexis staff are adapting to the frequent pervasiveness of cyber criminals through up to date cybercrime reports in order to configure ThreatMetrix preventative technological capabilities.
Overall, the exit for ThreatMetrix and its transition into the arms of LexisNexis was conducted efficiently. As the president and CEO of ThreatMetrix previously stated during the acquisition, the partnership with LexisNexis has been underway for at least two years preceding the official announcement (Lunden, 2018). This indicates that the attention of RELX was drawn in 2014 or earlier. Innovation, drive, and market demand will inevitably bring about newcomers, however the diligent observance of LexisNexis propagates the potential behind theses start-ups. The outsourcing of data storage and business intelligence information should have been anticipated earlier, to avoid the incurrence of unnecessary costs and the loss of crucial data which might result in the loss of customers. The transition into a completely cloud based system unraveled the improvised execution resulting in slower than promised response times, and physical vulnerability and susceptibility. Although losses were minimal, they could have been circumvented.
It is difficult to account for all the circumstances such an agile market incites. Emphasis on untouched markets could be heavily invested in. Perhaps apps could be offered to first line consumers to satisfy needs such as basic personal security. Many of the teams across LexisNexis are adopting the agile methodology signifying that many of the future projects are in a scrum process to deliver the product in the shortest amount of time (De Silva, 2020). There is a scrum master that manages these projects. Many of the teams are transitioning into the agile methodology due to the rapid feedback from customers and the effectiveness of quality and customer satisfaction based off the MVP (minimum viable product). Correspondingly, costs are reduced since they able are to compact goals into shorter sprints.
Bibliography
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Authors:
Khalid Farwana: kfarwana@yahoo.com
Mia Tollefson: miatollefson@gmail.com
Mitchell Otterstrom: vc4169cf@go.minnstate.edu
Mohamed AwMohamed: Mohamed.awmohamed@gmail.com
Sarah Kue: qc9745eb@go.minnstate.edu
Metropolitan State University MIS 310-50
Visionary Writing 