Veritas 🛡️

Winner of the Truth and Transparency Track sponsored by Visa at HackHarvard 2025

Enterprise-grade fraud protection for small businesses at a fraction of the cost. Veritas is a plug-and-play MFA SDK that prevents chargebacks before they happen.

💡 The Problem

Chargebacks cost merchants up to 3x the transaction amount in fees, penalties, and lost inventory. Enterprise fraud protection solutions exist, but they charge $2,500+ per month—completely out of reach for small and medium-sized businesses. SMBs are left vulnerable to fraudulent transactions that can devastate their bottom line.

✨ Our Solution

Veritas sits between your customers and payment processors (Stripe, PayPal, Square), adding a security layer that:

• Verifies customers via email/SMS before payment completion
• Assesses risk using device fingerprinting and behavioral analysis
• Provides merchants with a real-time dashboard to spot suspicious patterns
• Enables custom rules to prevent fraud based on your specific needs

All of this requires minimal code changes and can be integrated in minutes, not days.

🏗️ How It Works

1. Customer initiates checkout on your e-commerce site
2. Veritas intercepts the payment flow before it reaches the processor
3. MFA verification via email or SMS confirms customer identity
4. Device fingerprinting analyzes browser, location, and behavioral data
5. Risk assessment flags suspicious transactions in real-time
6. Merchant dashboard provides fraud analytics and custom rule configuration
7. Payment proceeds only after verification—or gets blocked if flagged

🔧 Tech Stack

Backend

• Node.js with Express for API endpoints
• SQLite for secure transaction and user data storage
• SendGrid for email verification
• Twilio for SMS authentication
• Salted hashing and HTTPS encryption for all sensible data

Frontend

• React for the interactive merchant dashboard
• Device fingerprinting via browser APIs
• Real-time analytics dashboard for merchants
• Stripe, PayPal, Square demo integrations

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 14+
• npm or yarn
• SendGrid API key
• Twilio credentials (optional, for SMS)

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/veritas.git
cd veritas

2. Set up environment variables Create a .env file in the root directory:

SENDGRID_API_KEY=your_sendgrid_key
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=your_twilio_sid
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=your_twilio_token
PORT=3001

3. Install backend dependencies

cd backend
npm install

4. Start the backend server

npm start

The API will run on http://localhost:3001

5. Access the merchant dashboard

cd ../frontend-merchant-dashboard
npm start
# Open index.html in your browser

Integrate with Your Site

Add Veritas to your checkout flow with 2 lines of code in your checkout page:

<script src="veritas.js"></script>
<script>merchantApiKey = "${your_merchant_key}";</script>

That's it! Veritas handles the rest.

🎯 Features

For Merchants

• ✅ Real-time fraud detection dashboard
• ✅ Custom rule configuration decide when user should have to use 2FA based on device, location and transaction amount
• ✅ Transaction history with risk scores
• ✅ Anonymized fraud pattern analytics
• ✅ Email and SMS alerts for suspicious activity

For Customers

• ✅ Fast, seamless MFA that doesn't disrupt checkout
• ✅ Multiple verification methods (email, SMS)
• ✅ Privacy-first approach with encrypted data
• ✅ Mobile-friendly verification flow

Security Features

• 🔒 Salted password hashing for all sensitive data
• 🔒 HTTPS encryption for data transmission
• 🔒 Device fingerprinting without invasive tracking
• 🔒 Anonymized analytics to protect customer privacy

🏆 Accomplishments

We're proud to have built:

• A plug-and-play solution requiring minimal code changes
• Enterprise-level security at a fraction of the cost
• Unprecedented fraud visibility for small businesses
• A system that balances security with UX—strong authentication without checkout friction

📚 What We Learned

• Security best practices for handling financial data with end-to-end encryption and hashing
• The economics of chargebacks and their impact on SMBs
• How to build developer-friendly integrations that don't disrupt existing workflows
• Device fingerprinting techniques that respect user privacy

👥 Team

Built with ❤️ by the ConUCracks team at HackHarvard 2025.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Special thanks to:

• Visa for sponsoring the Truth and Transparency track
• HackHarvard 2025 organizers