Credit Card fraud has been among the top news stories quite often lately, primarily due to the major credit card breach with Target Stores and Neiman Marcus during this past holiday season. Millions of credit card numbers were stolen with these two incidents. In the United States alone in 2010, approximately thirty-two percent of consumers reported personal credit card fraud ("House of Cards"). This number had increased twenty-seven percent from 2009. But credit card fraud is not something that has recently been brought to everyone's attention, it is something that has been going on for years and retailers are finally trying to do something about it. Leading researchers in the banking and finance industry, feel as though these values will be on the rise as long as banks continue to issue cards with magnetic strips on the back of the debit/credit cards. Many United States companies are slowly beginning to work with banks to alleviate this problem from occurring. Unfortunately many of these changes may result in higher credit card fees for their users. But one must question which would they prefer, a hacker gaining access to their bank information or paying a higher fee for a more secure credit card.
You may not even be aware but credit card and payment fraud is happening around you everyday. “Payment fraud occurs when someone gains financial or material advantage by using a payment instrument, or information from a payment instrument, to complete a transaction that is not authorized by the legitimate account holder” (Sullivan). It is obvious in this definition that the lack of authorization is a key point in credit card fraud. It is not only the customers and card holders that face challenges, the card issuers and store own...
... middle of paper ...
...es in the future (Koprowski).
Fortunately I have never had any type of credit card compromise affect me. There are many viewpoints to this topic and as a Business Finance major there are ways this topic can be approached. Retailers are putting the blame on the major banks and credit card companies. Banks are in turn putting the blame back onto the retailers. However, who is looking at the consumer and where they are accessing the internet and how they do their shopping. One would conclude that point of sale shopping should be the most secure type of debit card shopping but we have seen through the actions that resulted with Target Stores and Neiman Marcus, this is not always the case. However, no matter how often consumers are cautioned about where they do their online shopping, many still do it in WiFi Hot-Spots such as Starbucks, Panera Bread, airports, etc.
The Minneapolis based Target Corporation announced in December that criminals forced their way into the company’s computer system. The data breach compromised 40 million credit and debit card accounts of customers who shopped during the holiday season between November 27 and December 15, 2013. The data captured was far broader than originally imagined as hackers gained access to 70 million customer’s personal information including names, home addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses. Additionally, expiration dates, debit-card PIN numbers, and the embedded code on the magnetic strip of the card were stolen.
Hacking into large companies or agencies to steal one’s card information has become simple. Lewis (2013) says that, “Hacking is incredibly easy; survey data consistently shows that 80 to 90 percent of successful breaches of corporate networks required only the most basic techniques“(p. 1). On November 27, 2013, Target’s security was breeched when forty million credit and debit cards were stolen. The breach lasted from November 27 to December 15, 2013.
...only hear about the different ways that criminals are committing electronic fraud such as hacking in to somebody’s computer and stealing their credit or debit card information. There are also cases where peoples identities have been stolen and whole other lives have been built on them by another person. It all started with check fraud and although it’s not talked about as much anymore, it is still a very large concern for most business owners and people like you and me. The tips that have been provided for us can help protect us from fraud, but it is up to us to take the extra steps to prevent check fraud. We cannot sign up for check fraud protection the same way we could for credit or debit card protection or to help protect ourselves from identity theft. There are processes in place to help us once we’ve experienced check fraud but it is up to us to avoid it.
Shoplifting, employee theft and check fraud top retailers’ concerns. (2005). NPN, National Petroleum News, 96(11), 12. Retrieved May 11, 2005, from ABI-Inform Online
Identity theft has been a major issue of privacy and fraud. In the data breach analysis from the Identity Theft Resource Center (2013), the number of data breaches from the year 2005 to 2012 increased. In 2012, there had been 49% where the data breach exposed people Social Security Number. The data breach of 2012 has a rate of 27.4% caused by hackers. These breaches were commonly from 36.4% businesses and 34.7% health and medical (Identity Theft Resource Center 2013). The number of identity theft varies from physical possession to digital possession. At least one-fifth of trash cans contains papers listing people’s credit card number and personal information. People that throw away their trash mails contain much personal information that is useful to steal someone's identity (Davis, 2002). Technology becomes a need where people use it daily and as a result it has also become a use for identity theft as well. Throughout the years as technology develops so does identity theft. This paper shows the types, methods and technique used for identity theft, and it also examines possible risk of identity theft from current technology.
About 15 million United States residents have their identities and information used fraudulently each year. Along the use of their identities, they also had a combined financial loss totaling up to almost $50 billion. Major companies such as Apple, Verizon, Target, Sony, and many more have been victims of consumer information hacking. In each of the cases, millions of consumers’ personal information has been breached. In the article “Home Depot 's 56 Million Card Breach Bigger Than Target 's” on September 18, 2014, 56 million cards were breached due to cyber attackers. Before the Home Depot attack, Target had 40 million cards breached. Company’s information is constantly being breached and the consumers’ are the ones who end up having to pay the price. If a company cannot protect the information it takes, then it should not collect the information.
Identity theft is no new problem in our world. It has occurred for decades and only grows more popular with criminals. Due to our world’s expanding technology, identity theft is becoming easier to commit and harder to detect. Luckily as the criminals technology becomes more advanced, so does out justice system’s technology to help fight the crime. The number of criminals that engage in the fraud and thievery will only grow due to the lucrative nature of the crime, but also will the forces that are established to stop them. This white-collar crime will gain more attention and therefore more laws will be passed to protect the public from becoming victims. With the use of laws, task forces, and the education and awareness of the public, identity theft will be given more attention and focus to hopefully deter future threats from occurring.
Where in 56 million payment cards were stolen and the issues related to the occurrence.
Your identity is unsafe in more places than you may realize. Every store you walk in has the possibility or either having someone behind the counter, or someone hacking into a business from outside, readily waiting to steal your identity. Using your credit card in any store is never safe no matter what signs are posted around the store, or how big the company is; it’s not always the people who work there that want your identity. The article Identity theft growing, costly to victims in The Arizona Republic, J. Craig Anderson ...
Saleh, Z. (2013). The impact of identity theft on perceived. Journal of Internet Banking & Commerce, 18(2), 1-11. Retrieved from http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/jibc/
In a 2006 Federal Trade Commission survey, over 50% of victims of identity theft lost 1,000 dollars or more to attackers stated by Glotfelty, a cyber threat analyst who works to examine organizations on potential internal and open-source threats (cited in Glotfelty). In an article published by USAGov, identity theft can be unnoticed for days or even weeks (“Identity Theft”). Also, victims of identity theft not only lost money but lost countless hours trying to resolve the issue. For example, in another Federal Trade Commission survey, 60% of victims spent over 10 plus hours and half of that number lost 40 or more hours trying to resolve the issue of identity theft (cited in Glotfelty). Identity theft can also make victims lose their wages and have legal fees. At worse scenarios, attackers can ultimately open a new credit card account using your name and social security number. This is significant because they can use this credit card to buy merchandise without paying the bills and as a result, these actions are reported on your credit report. Another incident an attacker can do is open a new bank account in your name and write bad checks affecting your credit report. Other bad scenarios are that an attacker can take out loans and buy cars, houses, or other expensive merchandise (cited in Tiller). In one situation, Lara Love and David Jackson were a couple who lived in a quiet neighborhood and lived a simple life. However, what next door neighbors didn’t know was that they allegedly obtained 30 personal identity accounts in which they used new credit cards for online gambling (cited in Kiesbye). Before these two thieves were eventually caught, they acquired more than 15,000 dollars in which they used on illegal drugs and daily bills (cited in Kiesbye). However, businesses suffer greatly to identity theft. Businesses result in similar consequences, but at a greater cost. For
Digital wallets are quickly becoming mainstream mode of online payment. Shoppers are adopting digital wallets at an incredibly rapid pace, largely due to convenience and ease of use. Tech -savvy shoppers are increasingly demanding seamless, Omni-channel retail experiences and looking for solutions that deliver this. There’s no question 2017 will be a pivotal year as digital wallets gain more widespread acceptance.
III. Thesis Statement: Identity Theft is rapidly becoming a national issue because anyone of us could be a victim of identity theft. How we protect our self, keep our information private, identify any signs of identity theft, and report and repair our credit is up to each one of us. We have to be vigilant about our protecting ourselves from criminals.
Some of the arguments in the article say that the reason why people are in debt is because expenses are higher now than they were in the 1970 's. Another argument is that we are living in a materialistic place, especially in California and New York. Everybody wants to look good and have the best, so they use their credit card to make these expenses. Some arguments blame teens for using credit cards. Teens already use credit cards and spend money. Banks and financial institutions are also blamed for the rise in credit card debt because they lower monthly payments on credit cards. Others just think that Americans are comfortable with having credit card debts.
As established by PCI DSS, our company needs to include different aspects to securely handle and store credit cards information. From the perspective of the Information Security Analyst we must to consider the following points: