Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

• Feb 12, 2013

iovation, a provider of device reputation protection against online fraud and abuse, revealed today that 15 percent of all online, dating-site activity originated from mobile devices in 2012. This is 65 percent increase from 2011.

Using inovation’s reputation device and real-time, fraud-prevention service, Leveraging Reputation Manager 360, it was determined that the top, mobile devices that consumers used to access dating sites in 2012 were:

    1.     Android Phones—49 percent of all mobile transactions. 

    2.     iPhones—25 percent of all mobile transactions.  

    3.     iPads—16 percent of all mobile transactions. 

    4.     BlackBerry Phones—4 percent of all mobile transactions.

“Although mobile devices are already commonly used on online dating sites, by analyzing iovation’s device usage trends, we can see that their use will soon become the norm rather than the exception,” said Molly O’Hearn, vice president of pperations at iovation. “As consumers become more comfortable with using mobile devices in online dating, cybercriminals will also expand their use of mobile phones and tablets to exploit others wanting to make romantic connections.”

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, iovation warns dating sites to be on the lookout for any potential fraud schemes coming from mobile devices. In 2012, iovation found that 0.3 percent of all activity on online dating sites conducted from mobile devices was fraudulent, compared to 1.36 percent from desktop computers and laptops. The company reported that the most-used mobile devices in 2012 for fraud on online dating sites were:

    1.     Android Phones—27 percent of all mobile fraud.     

    2.     iPads —27 percent of all mobile fraud.

    3.     iPhones—23 percent of all mobile fraud. 

    4.     BlackBerry Phones—13 percent of all mobile fraud.

(See Security Today's blog post about online dating here. We welcome your comments and feedback!)