Justin Lie's global cybersecurity company Shield safeguards some of the world's biggest brands online
In the What Matters To Me series, a Generation T honouree describes what they do, why they do it, and why it matters.
As founder and CEO of global online fraud protection company Shield, Justin Lie knows the risk of cybercrime all too well. But he didn’t start off in crime-fighting racket.
For his first venture, at age 16, he resold gaming products from US-based suppliers, targeting local gamers on eBay and, later, his own e-commerce websites. But a series of fraudulent orders from scammers using stolen credit cards pushed him to look for ways to protect his online business.
This developed into a passion for fighting online fraud and in 2008, Lie started Shield (originally named CashRun, and later CashShield) to provide end‑to‑end preventive solutions for big-name technology companies. Today, his clients include Southeast Asian super app Grab and digital services conglomerate Sea.
Here, Lie discusses his work in his own words.
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When my e-commerce business received fraudulent orders, it was very frustrating. I would receive chargeback notices that could amount to US$500 each. So I started to research ways to combat such attacks and taught myself to write risk algorithms. Eventually, I devised a system of rules that could assess every incoming order while rejecting those that appeared abnormal. The solution worked very well, and that was when fighting online fraud became a passion for me.
Online fraud is constantly evolving. The methods that fraudsters use are becoming more sophisticated every day, so no two workdays are the same. Shield predicts and prevents fraud before it happens, helping our customers to scale their business without risk.
