With the commencement of the 618 online shopping festival, live streaming rooms on major e-commerce platforms once again captured consumer attention. In a liquor e-commerce live stream on May 20th, the host achieved sales exceeding 100 million yuan in just 43 minutes, selling 30,000 bottles of liquor. However, these "flash sale" bargain items have become a channel for some scalpers to bulk purchase. They infiltrate live streaming rooms, use illegal plug-in software to snap up "flash sale" and "limited purchase" products, then resell them at marked-up prices to make huge profits.

Behind the lively scene of live streaming sales, some criminals exploit technical means to illegally purchase "flash sale" bargain items from live streaming rooms and profit handsomely, seriously disrupting a fair shopping environment.

Scalpers in Live Streaming Rooms

The police in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, reported a case of illegal purchase and profiteering from "flash sale" goods, successfully arresting suspects Sheng and Zheng. The police confiscated 25 mobile phones used in the crime, 3 remote servers, and 2 computers, along with seizure of one set of snatch software and its source code.

Investigation revealed that the suspects illegally cracked the security algorithms of e-commerce platforms and used artificial intelligence technology to develop purchase programs. These programs could simultaneously bulk purchase "limited purchase" items from different live streaming rooms and resell them at inflated prices for profit. For instance, they sold precious liquor purchased for 9.9 yuan or "welfare price" at market rates, earning over 1000 yuan profit per bottle; and high-end phones purchased at official guided prices were sold at market rates, yielding over 3000 yuan profit per unit.

The suspects set up multiple layers of stealth "barriers." They purchased hundreds of accounts and "cloud phones," used automated snatch programs to "flash sale" items before they officially opened for sale. This was achieved through methods such as changing proxy IPs, diversifying platform accounts, obscuring order addresses, frequently changing phone numbers, and using fictitious recipient names. As of December 20, 2023, Sheng and Zheng had sold over 570 bottles of precious liquor and over 650 high-end phones illegally, with profits nearing 1 million yuan.

Anti-Fraud Measures: Targeted Solutions for E-commerce Platforms

"Scalpers" in e-commerce live streaming rooms exploit technical means for illegal profit, causing substantial losses to e-commerce platforms and undermining the shopping experience for ordinary consumers. E-commerce platforms need to enhance security measures and improve technological capabilities to prevent similar incidents. Dingxiang provides targeted identification and prevention products to address the use of various illegal techniques by suspected criminals.

Addressing the issue of "scalpers" frequently changing phone numbers and modifying IP addresses, Dingxiang Device Fingerprinting generates unique identifiers for user devices based on hardware, network, and environmental characteristics. This effectively identifies whether client Device Fingerprinting is legitimate, detecting risks such as emulators, device rooting, jailbreaking, and injection hijacking, enabling effective monitoring and early warning. Additionally, monitoring abnormal behaviors such as multiple activations from the same device, anomalous IP associations with the same device, and disproportionate usage of older device models within the same channel further enhances risk identification and interception capabilities.

To tackle the problem of "scalpers" engaging in bulk registration and snap-up purchases, Dingxiang atbCAPTCHA provides an effective means to distinguish between human users and automated bots. It verifies and determines in real-time behaviors such as bulk registration, login, claims, queries, and applications, enabling direct interception or secondary verification for suspicious accounts. This method effectively prevents automated purchase behaviors by "scalpers."

Further control measures are implemented against "scalpers" through comprehensive management of account activities. By leveraging registration, login, and activation data, coupled with black and white list data maintenance and risk control strategies, Dingxiang's Dinsight and Xintell intelligent model platforms employ data mining techniques for behavioral modeling. This includes analysis and prediction of behaviors related to registration, login, ordering, and purchasing, thereby supporting direct implementation of risk control strategies.

Additionally, consumers should remain vigilant to avoid becoming victims of "scalpers" seeking illicit profits. Only through collaborative efforts can a fair, trustworthy, and secure online shopping environment be cultivated.