A Critical Analysis of Machine Learning Techniques for Online Transaction Security

Abstract

The widespread adoption of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as the preferred digital transaction method has led to a sharp increase in fraudulent activities, presenting a considerable challenge to the security and reliability of online payments.Top of Form To address this pressing concern, our project focuses on developing a sophisticated fraud detection system tailored specifically for UPI transactions. We utilize Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), an advanced deep learning architecture, to intricately capture the sequence of operations involved in UPI transaction processing. Through extensive data collection and preprocessing, we curate a diverse dataset comprising various transaction types, amounts, and temporal patterns, ensuring comprehensive coverage of transaction behaviour. The CNN is meticulously trained on this dataset, leveraging its innate ability to discern subtle patterns and dependencies within transaction sequences. Notably, our approach emphasizes the importance of minimizing false positives to prevent genuine transactions from being erroneously flagged as fraudulent. In real-time, incoming UPI transactions are subjected to scrutiny by the trained CNN, which evaluates their conformity to learned normal behaviour patterns. Transactions exhibiting deviations indicative of potential fraud are promptly flagged for further investigation, thus enabling proactive mitigation of fraudulent activities. Most importantly, our study contains a comprehensive comparative analysis that compares the efficacy of conventional machine learning methods such as Support Vector Machines (SVM), Random Forests, and Logistic Regression with CNN-based fraud detection. Through meticulous evaluation, we demonstrate the superior efficacy of CNNs in detecting fraudulent UPI transactions, owing to their inherent capacity to capture intricate spatial and temporal dependencies. Our findings underscore the transformative potential of deep learning techniques in bolstering the security and resilience of digital payment ecosystems, thereby safeguarding users and fostering trust in online transactions.