Abstract: A method and apparatus for efficient and progressive fraud detection are described. Transactions are received by a server computer system and include attributes and transaction data. To determine whether a transaction is fraudulent, and thus should be rejected, a progressive fraud determination process is performed by the server computer system. The progressive fraud determination process includes performing a first set of one or more transaction fraud determinations based on a first set of features determined for the transaction. When the first set of one or more transaction fraud determinations identifies the transaction as fraudulent or legitimate, the progressive fraud determination process is terminated based on this decision, and before performing additional successive fraud determination processes. By exiting the progressive fraud determination process early, substantial processing, memory and bandwidth savings can be realized without sacrificing fraud detection accuracy.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for efficient and progressive fraud detection are described. Transactions are received by a server computer system and include attributes and transaction data. To determine whether a transaction is fraudulent, and thus should be rejected, a progressive fraud determination process is performed by the server computer system. The progressive fraud determination process includes performing a first set of one or more transaction fraud determinations based on a first set of features determined for the transaction. When the first set of one or more transaction fraud determinations identifies the transaction as fraudulent or legitimate, the progressive fraud determination process is terminated based on this decision, and before performing additional successive fraud determination processes. By exiting the progressive fraud determination process early, substantial processing, memory and bandwidth savings can be realized without sacrificing fraud detection accuracy.