Credit Card Fraud

Post date: 2008-05-26 05:00:46

Apply for Credit and Be Aware of Credit Card Fraud

Needless to say, even though there are plenty news and articles on the computer fraud in the mass media, the really serious cases of computer systems break-ins happen not that often. But when this happens, such trifles as postal epidemics and student bickering fall into the background. The hacker who managed to concern the interests of millions of people deserves the special attention. Such case happened in the beginning of the week in the US. The remaining unknown violator managed to break the data protection system and got an access to the millions of credit card numbers.

The incident, which occupies the minds of the specialists of the largest emission companies, together with FBI and American Secret Services is interesting for many reasons. And its scale is not the most remarkable thing. First of all, it has demonstrated how much you can achieve if you choose the target of the future blow correctly. The Americans are dreaming about the catch of the hacker probably more than they could dream about the deposition of Hussein or the destruction of Bin Laden. The victim of fraud that he chose wasn't the huge mall, the giant credit card issuer, or the bank. He chose an unassuming small company Data Processors International (DPI) with only 40 people in staff, occupying one floor of the small building in Omaha. What's the DPI's business? They provide the services of a reseller. The term direct marketing is probably familiar to you. The TV commercials call on to make an order here and now by phone using a credit card. The DPI acts like a mediator between the consumer and the seller, processing the orders (both made by phone and post). DPI is a real mine of precious credit data.

How exactly the hacker managed to penetrate into the company's net and system is still withheld. But it's known that the staff of DPI is not the privy to the break-in. The system was attacked from without through the Internet. Anyway, the fraudster got access to the list of the millions of credit card numbers. According to some estimates, there were about 2 million credit cards, while the others say there were almost 8 million plastics by Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. This is around 1% of the total amount of credit cards issued by these companies on the territory of US.

Right after the fact of fraud was revealed to the DPI, all the credit companies and banks related to stolen accounts were informed of that. Fortunately, still not any credit number was used by fraudsters. However, to escape the consequences, the banks have started preventing identity theft measures. The actions are simple, but taking into consideration the scale of the event, they can turn into a global campaign. The banks are blocking the accounts and are issuing the new cards.

How big is the chance that the fraudster will be caught? Unfortunately, it is rather slight, as the fraudster took care of the ways to cover his tracks (alas, there are plenty of methods to do this).