Start-up Guardian Analytics Monday makes it debut with an online fraud-prevention service geared for financial services firms.

The FraudMAP service analyzes account holder activity and works to spot any fraudsters trying to break in. It's based on server software that takes a real-time feed of a company's main online banking application and analyzes the data using FraudMAP's modeling technology.

"It builds up a unique model of each account," says Tom Miltonberger, CEO and founder Guardian Analytics. Miltonberger is a former executive with Quova, whose IP geo-location technology is integrated into FraudMAP under a partnership arrangement between the security firms.

"Quova's IP geo-location system is used a lot to spot credit-card fraud. Quova will tell you the geographic location of an IP address down to the city level. In addition, we're trying to identify when a fraudster is trying to get access to your online data."

FraudMAP's dynamic account modeling is used to identify when an account holder appears to act outside the range of normal use.

"Most people don't travel to Russia, so using the account in Russia would normally look suspicious," says Miltonberger. This would trigger a "high risk score" which the Guardian Analytics service delivers as a real-time alert to managers. Managers can determine what specific action to take when notified.

Guardian Analytics' fraud-prevention system competes with other online fraud-prevention analysis services, including that from RSA Security.

Guardian Analytics, which has a dozen employees and was founded in March 2005, has received US$5.75 million in venture-capital funding from Foundation Capital and other investors. Its FraudMAP service starts at US$70,000.