Here’s a quote for you:
Credit card information theft and fraud has increased at a steady pace over the last five years. It is an area of vulnerability that has been increasingly exploited. As the problem continues to evolve from physical theft to more widespread use of the Internet and technology to facilitate fraudulent activity, the trend will continue to track upward. While criminals do not have a monopoly on credit card information theft and fraud, credit card exploitation and fraud has become a growth industry for terrorists.
That quote from a White paper from Shift4 is a pretty good indicator that we’ve got trouble in River City. It’s nothing new of course, but the white paper lays out some interesting facts.
We have to remember that Al-Qaeda is more than an organization, it’s an ideology. And part of that ideology is that criminal activity when used to further the goals is not considered criminal. Credit card fraud, in their minds, is a perfectly legitimate method of raising funds for their activities, which are no less illegal than the fraud.
I don’t have the answer of course, but I feel like I’m in good company. The card companies don’t have one either. CVV/CVV2 wasn’t the answer, Cardholder Authentication in the form of Verified by Visa and SecureCode wasn’t the answer, and now we know that Chip and PIN was far from the answer.
Al-Qaeda has plenty of tech-savy people and as long as there are ways to exploit the payment industry, they will continue to exploit it. Staying one step ahead of them is the best that we can hope for. And even that is an uphill struggle.
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I don’t know what the position is in the USA but here in France we have been informed that, in an attempt to curb the incessant upward trend in credit card fraud, we will now have to supply our birth date in addition to cvv2 every time we make a purchase. That’s a tough one for criminals to crack (NOT)! Seems to me that banks are really scraping the barrel now. It’s like an admission that the credit card system has failed …which is something you have been saying for a long time Tom.
Yes, I have been saying that, and as every month goes by and every breach gets announced I believe it more. It’s certainly no secret that the U.S. economy is in deep trouble but the card companies just continue to put out more and more offers full of hidden language to the people that can least afford it.
Credit card debt is an unsecured loan. Unsecured and under secured loans are what got us into this mess over here. You’d think the card companies would have gotten a message from all this. With the bad debt and the bad security, how long can it last?