Cases of online credit card fraud and piracy - such as
suffered by Visa and MasterCard in the US this week - are likely to
rise significantly, security experts have warned.The credit
card giants admitted today (18 February) that a computer hacker had
gained access to more than 5.4 million credit card accounts,
although they said none of the information had been used in a
fraudulent way.
The hacker
had breached the security system of a third-party payment card
processor to gain access to credit card numbers, Visa and
MasterCard said.
Both
companies said they immediately alerted the affected banks that
issued the cards. “Visa's fraud team immediately notified all
affected card issuing financial institutions and is working with
the third-party payment card processor to protect against the
threat of a future intrusion. Visa will continue to monitor the
situation and the potentially compromised accounts.”
Security
consultancy mi2g said its research has consistently shown that
Brazilian, US and European criminal syndicates have been carrying
out credit card and identity theft in increasing numbers by
targeting the proliferating e-commerce suppliers and their credit
card settlement agents.
“Now that the $2tn per annum credit card settlement backbone is
internet-enabled and e-commerce via the web is growing
exponentially, the number of such cases that will come to light in
the area of credit card fraud and piracy are likely to rise
significantly,” mi2g said.
The mainstream databases, Microsoft SQL, Oracle or IBM DB/2 -
where such information is stored - still exhibit vulnerabilities,
the company said. In addition, it said, patches and necessary
encryption regimes are not always appropriately applied by all
suppliers.
“There is still an inadequate understanding in industry on how
to protect credit card data and personal profiles,” mi2g
warned.