Funding Terrorism With Credit Cards

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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