Credit Card Theft Is Not For Hard Working Consumers Everywhere

Credit card companies are not aware and do not make credit cards that can detect skimming devices. While using the internet, becoming a victim of phishing is very common. Between January 2005 and January 2006, more than 190,000 different phishing scams were reported (Privacy Matters). Phishing works on consumers because of poor consumer education and awareness. According to a study done by Harvard University and UC Berkeley called “Why Phishing Works,” 90% of subjects in the study were unable to pick out a highly effective phishing e-mail when simply judging whether it was genuine (Privacy Matters). Even though all of these things are somewhat out of the credit card companies control there still should be actions from the credit card companies to prevent the use of the information stolen from being used.

Have you ever received a credit card bill at the end of the month with a ridiculous amount of money needed to be paid that you never spent? This is because of identity theft. The FTC estimates that each year, over 9 million people are affected by identity theft. According to Sally Driscoll, this is because almost anyone with a computer and a slight bit of computer knowledge can pull off identity theft. Experts also claim that identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in the world. Identity theft is a global problem that cannot be stopped without effective measures. The problem is, effective measures are very hard to come by when dealing with identity theft because almost any security protocol can be by-passed.

Student Answer: There are several methods to a crook use to steal your identity. Some crooks are using credit cards and drivers licenses with identities lifted from a stolen or forged passports a crook can be one that is pilfering your credit card number and charging merchandise to your

protect yourself from becoming a victim of credit card fraud and how to avoid traps that thieves

In December of 2013, target corporation faced a serious security breach where over 40 million credit cards were stolen from different target stores. This paper is going to explore the problem, the background information about the problem, the controls that could have been in place to prevent the issue, the intended plan of control and the associated risks involved.

An unauthorized and highly sophisticated malware that not been encountered previously by any security company attacked the point-of-sale systems where all the card information is stored. The outcome of this hacking been extensive and affected millions of customer’s personal and payment data was exposed, results in the payment card compromise of three million customers.

In January 2007, TJX Companies Inc. released a statement to the press that an estimated 40 million of their customer’s credit card accounts had been compromised (although final reports state that over 94 million accounts were affected) (Berg 2008). Through the company’s POS (Point of Sales) system, credit card information was stolen by a ring of hackers and approximately $4.5 billion spent on these cards (Berg 2008). What the hackers did was intercepted the credit card information from customers who swiped their cards at the store and then created their own physical cards using this information. Then they sold the credit cards to people, who turned around and used these cards at retail stores, like Walmart (Agrawal 2011). Three areas of weakness within the company’s IT systems that allowed for an attack of this scale were: inadequate wireless security, improper storage of customer data and failure to encrypt customer account data (Berg 2008).

(April 2015) today our financial and personal information is everywhere. It is in our phones for mobile payments, in our wallets on our credit cards and in the data centers and clouds of the companies and third parties that complete transactions on our behalf. With so much personal information—quite literally—floating around various access points, it has never been more lucrative or easy for cyber-criminals to access and mine private information to sell on the black market.The Target data breach at the end of 2013, which affected the card payment information of more than 40 million shoppers and the personal data of almost 70 million consumers, kick-started a continuous barrage of point-of-sale (POS) attacks affecting consumers, businesses and banks throughout 2014. Between the breaches at Dairy Queen, Home Depot and Neiman Marcus, it seemed like cyber-criminals were always one step ahead of the game, using malware and card-skimming techniques to gain access to confidential

In December 2013, Target announced that massive amounts of credit and debit card information they collected over the years might be in the danger of theft. The credit card breach could affect as many as 70 million customers who swept cards in the retail stores or linked their cards with the membership card, the RedCard. Each card information contains a card number, holder’s name, address, phone number and etc. The more information the thieves got, the more conveniently the thieves could use them to get benefits from the card holders. Jia Lynn Yang and Amrita Jayakumar, the authors of “Target says up to 70 million more customers were hit by December data breach”, write about how bad people will use customers’ information to crime. These thieves possibly shop online by inserting the card information. They could also contact with the victims to gather more sensitive information, and even hack into their computers. This event forces us to seriously consider the crisis in how retails protect customers’ data (Yang &

When online commerce first emerged, many consumers were wary of supplying their credit cards and giving their personal information to online stores. This led to the development of websites such as Paypal, which restricts the access a retailer has to one’s credit card number (Einstein). The threat of fraud has always been a worry for online consumers, but consumers face the same threats when shopping in a brick and mortar store (Chadwick).

Although major retailers have had credit card breaches, which devastated consumer trust in credit, Mobile payment systems stay efficient, but risk personal and financial data fraud similar to plastic credit card usage theft. Patrons fear merchants can track your shopping habits, location and financial records using a mobile GPS signal. Nevertheless, worries that someone can steal their information when sent wirelessly therefore consumer confidence remains low. Thorough safety measures will help give customers composure and regain assurance. (Busby, 2014) (Sapienza, 2013)

‘’Founded in 1994 the EMV referred to Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, who together provided better card security.’’ (www.thebreif.com) Currently credit card fraud has been at an all time high in the years 2016 and 2017. This activity has skyrocketed since young teens and young adults have the idea of targeting adults and senior citizens, and using someone 's information to buy whatever the scammer desires. “The U.S. is responsible for 47% of the world’s fraud despite only accounting for 24% of total worldwide card volume.’’ (www.nasdaq.com) Credit card fraud has been a big problem, although through new security implementations such as chips and pin systems, the level of security associated with cards has improved. In the future credit card fraud may come to a stop, or at least slow down significantly. With this new security being implemented and new legislation laws credit card offenders may finally be brought to justice.

In today’s economy, cash or a credit card is needed to meet the basic human needs. It is an apparent fact that we need cash or credit cards to purchase items such as food, clothing, and to buy gas. Also, when you are out shopping and discover that you have used all the cash in your possession, it is then that you realize that the advantage of having a credit card. Furthermore, with cash, you are restricted to the amount in your wallet or purse; however, a credit card allows you to pay for your purchase at a later date. Both cash and credit cards can be useful when you manage them wisely. While cash and credit cards are similar in that they both are readily accessible, used for goods and services at the time of purchase, they are dissimilar because of theft, high- interest rates, identity theft.

The less sophisticated thieves have perfected the art of “dumpster-driving” rummaging through trash. Abusing employer’s authorized access to credit reports or some even playing ‘landlord’ has given them unauthorized access to victim’s reports. Some victims have been scammed fro information by an identity thief posing as a legitimate businessperson or government official. In the most recent news from Concord, NC (Aug. 19, 2004), the police have uncovered a more sophisticated case of ID theft. The newspapers stated, “Authorities think a portable credit card reader, or skimmer, was used to read personal information off a credit card’s magnetic strip. Then those details were applied to the strip on the back of a different cared.”

Given the lack of ability to inspect merchandise before purchase, consumers are at higher risk of fraud than face-to-face transactions. Merchants also risk fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards or fraudulent repudiation of the online purchase. However, merchants face less risk from physical theft by using a warehouse instead of a retail storefront. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption has generally solved the problem of credit card numbers being intercepted in transit between the consumer and the merchant. However, one must still trust the merchant and employees not to use the credit card information subsequently for their own purchases, and not to pass the information to others. Also, hackers might break into a merchant's web site and steal names, addresses and credit card numbers, although the Payment Card