Online Card Fraud Shows Greater Tendency Than Chip and Pin

As fraudsters divert their attacks from retailers, they continue to increase the grievous affliction of committing card fraud over the Internet, phone and in overseas countries.

APACS, the U.K. payments association released 2006 fraud statistics on March 14, 2007. The figures showed that there was 3% loss due to card frauds to 428 million pounds last year that decreased by nearly 80m pounds over 2005-2006. But online banking manipulations went up 44% from 23.2m pounds to 33.5m pounds over 2005 to 2006.

Online banking fraud resulted mainly from phishing attacks and trojans that allow seizing secret information like passwords and Pins. Fraud not involving card or that carried out over the Net or the phone went up an additional 16% in 2006 in comparison to 2005. That accounts for 50% of all losses from card frauds that are now being replaced by online banking fraud.

The last one rose by 44% to 33.5m pounds in 2006 and the greater part of it came from phishing cases, according to Sandra Quinn, director of communications at APACS.

In these phishing scams, fraudsters air websites that look exactly like the real bank sites. They then send bulk of spam mails to trick people into visiting the fake sites and feeding their online banking account details.

According to Sandra Quinn, the figures imply that there is no single approach to deal with all types of fraud. The Chip and PIN over the counters in U.K. shops and stores has made a huge impact on fraud losses but now the trend has shifted more to fraud where transactions do not occur with chip and PIN. These transactions take place over the Internet and telephone, through mail orders or in countries abroad that have not yet adopted the chip and PIN system.

International manipulation of U.K. bank accounts rose by 43% amounting to 118.2m pounds, while fraud inside the country fell by 13% to 412m pounds.

Overall fraud in 2006 fell 3% from 504.8m pounds to 429.4m pounds. Fraud committed by stealing or losing cards fell 23% and fraud due to identity theft declined to 15.4m pounds.

Related article: Online Crooks Fighting To Snatch Each Other’s Botnets

» SPAMfighter News - 3/27/2007