- Shoppers tempted to pick up Christmas gifts online are
being warned to take care after new figures revealed that fraud on the
internet is rocketing.
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- A new study by the clearing banks has discovered that
online deception reached £30m in the past year, as Britons become
increasingly eager to make use of the speed and convenience of cyber retailing.
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- Every day consumers are losing about £300,000 to
"card not present" (CNP) transactions, where there is no face-to-face
transaction. "Credit and debit cards weren't designed for that sort
of transaction," said a spokeswoman for the Association of Payment
Clearing Services (Apacs). "And for the fraudster, they don't care
how they get your money, as long as they get it."
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- In all, £109m was lost to fraudulent transactions
where the buyer used the phone, mail order or internet. One third of that
was internet fraud.
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- CNP fraud has grown by 33 per cent over the past two
years, while fraud on British cards grew by 15 per cent to £411m
overall.
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- Experts say a growing range of techniques is used to
part people from their credit or debit details. "Hacking into sites
that store card details is the bulk of the problem," said Dr Neil
Barrett, security consultant for Information Risk Management, an internet
crime consultancy in London. "The details are then sold off for $5
apiece, and traded among the hackers."
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- Other scams include fake web "shopfronts",
which are cheap to set up but act simply to capture people's details.
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- A relative of these is the "phishing" e-mails
sent out by fraudsters in the United States and Russia in September and
October, hoping to snare bank customers. Computer users were asked to visit
a website - following a genuine-looking link in the e-mail - to verify
their online identity, password and other details.
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- Some Barclays customers did and eight people had money
taken from their accounts. Another 12 saw attempts made to access them
from abroad, which Barclays was able to stop.
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- A Barclays spokeswoman said yesterday: "All those
affected were covered under our online fraud guarantee. None of them lost
any money; we refunded it." The bank is now working with the national
hi-tech crime unit, based at Scotland Yard.
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- Other frauds involve gambling and auction sites. But
Apacs was clear that the biggest problems arose from people not destroying
card receipts after shopping, or letting their card out of their sight,
allowing it to be "skimmed" for its data by criminals.
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- Retailers and banks are hope that the new "chip
and PIN" system, where the buyer enters a PIN code that is checked
by a secure chip on their card, will drastically reduce fraud in shops.
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- But with the physical world getting harder to crack,
thieves are turning online and finding that there are rich pickings. In
some cases, people are even pretending they have been defrauded to avoid
paying their debts.
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- Dr Barrett said: "We're working at present on a
case where a man has run up big debts on a gambling site with his credit
card, and then said that the card had been stolen.
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- "It's a hard one, but we're confident we can get
to the bottom of it."
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- Although "chip and PIN" may make shop transactions
more secure, the banks and retailers have not yet decided whether to implement
it online. "If they do, it would be a very brave man who would predict
that it will stop anything for longer than a few months," Dr Barrett
said. "We have to recognise as a community that there's no once-and-for-all
solution. It's an arms race that will carry on for ever."
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- Beating the fraudsters: Scams and what to do
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- By Charles Arthur
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- SCAM ONE
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- Hackers break into a website that holds your credit card
details.
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- How common? Very - thousands of cards are compromised
in this way every year. But most are in the US.
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- How to protect against it? Check your statement for peculiar
transactions.
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- SCAM TWO
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- Fraudsters set up a website that looks like an electronic
storefront (selling computers, software or other goods) and get you to
input your credit card and personal details.
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- How common? Fairly - store software is widely available
on the Net, and requires little expertise to set up.
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- How to protect against it? See whether anyone else on
the Net has used the site - look for mentions on websites you trust. Search
for it on Google's "groups" area: if it's a fake it may already
have been mentioned.
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- SCAM THREE
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- An item is bought at auction using a stolen credit card,
and then resold: the criminal gets the cash from the sale.
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- How common? Very - it's a primary fraud on the auction
site eBay.
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- How to protect against it? See if an item being sold
has been sold recently. See if the auction deadline is suspiciously short.
The scammer doesn't mind getting below the normal price, as long as he
gets some money quickly, before the fraud (on the stolen card) is spotted.
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- SCAM FOUR
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- Fraudsters send out an e-mail with an official-looking
link to a bank, or online sites such as Amazon, eBay or PayPal, saying
you must "input your details" or your access will be terminated.
From this they can get straight into your bank account.
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- How common? Increasingly - a number of Britons have been
caught by this.
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- How to protect against it? Don't trust e-mails that appear
to come from your bank; most of all, don't just click links in e-mails.
Go to your bank's website (typing in the location by hand) and check the
details. Failing that, call your bank. If it were really important, they
would have sent you a letter.
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- SCAM FIVE
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- A virus or worm infects your machine, allowing fraudsters
to capture your bank passwords or even watch your machine while it's online.
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- How common? A surprisingly large number of people - perhaps
you - have machines infected with one of the many Windows viruses. Such
machines generate spam and are a security risk.
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- How to protect against it? Install and update new antivirus
software; install and use a "firewall". If you have broadband,
these are essential. Try to keep up with Microsoft's security updates.
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=462618
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