Revised : Skimming

In the last blog, I discussed some obvious and most-know methods used for credit card fraud operations. Meanwhile in this one, I will discuss some other complex methods that US citizens should be aware of. Skimming is a method that consists of copying the magnetic strip present on a credit card and duplicate it in another’s. This can be done by anyone. For instance, a corrupted employee on a gas pump can have a skimmer stashed out of sight of customers and would swap the card on it; so he can store the credit card’s records. Then, he would sell those informations illegally to other people. Consequently, criminals will use these duplicated debit cards to purchase whatever they want until the victims notice unintentional purchases on their statements and contact the bank. 

The only way to deal with it is to make sure that your credit card stays in sight and never let it move out of your vision.

However, this is not a real solution. Some countries (like India) inject another electric band on the chip reader and duplicate every card swapped before processing the purchase.

The solution !?

Within the most recent advancement in a global initiative to combat fraud, researchers conceived the fabulous chip card reader (EMV), which you have certainly seen its large presence on the market this year. This have come out with a chip new technology analyzer which will play a role in reducing counterfeit card operation (J.P Morgan). Indeed, new credit cards projected to the market have started to come out with a new micro-computer chip that will pass on a large security program before processing a transaction. This means that reproduced/copied credits cards will be tackled by this reader !

However we are not yet far at this points. Firstly, most banks are in the process of reissuing all credits cards which will take a delay of a minimal of 5 years. Secondly, even since at October 2015 the government have passed a bill forcing all businesses to step forward and migrate to the new chip reader, many operators are still getting trouble with it. The issue is that new terminals for each business need to be certified by each card company before it can switch totally to the new reader. However, many mid-sizes markets didn’t get certified even one year after requesting it. Furthermore, the government didn’t extend the deadline for those companies that can not use these new chip readers after buying it. 

This seem to be totally ridiculed for the US which should be in advance compared to other EU countries which have successfully migrated to the new system.

Hoping that this blog will help you to have a perception about Skimming, in the next post, I will blog about an interview of a comrade that have been victim of fraud.

Revised : Credit card fraud

The United States is the country most affected by credit card fraud and accounted for 72 percent of data breaches in the world (Holmes, 2015). This issue is on the rise and touches many innocents who are victim of this theft. Under these circumstances, people affected by this fraud must run into diverse elucidations helping to protect their credit card information. Submission of credit card informations by email or low-reputed websites are two essential causes leading to credit card theft. Scamming also known as Email Phishing, is the most-know option used by Hackers to steal credit card information. It all starts from an email revealing a fake shopping deal that seems to come from the real business partener. Just like a deal of 400$ off on the new Iphone which excites certain consumers to take it .Their credit card informations will be transmitted to the thief; and in exchange they will receive nothing. Only these credits cards will be emptied as soon as the hacker gots theirs hands on them. To counter this kind of scamming, you have to make sure that the email deliver end-up in this example with @apple.com at first. Secondly, according to Apple FAQ, the store never ask to provide via email a full credit card number or a social security number. All transactions must be handled on their official website. Another example of scamming is the “Nigerian email scam”. This is the funniest email scam I have ever read, but still sentimental people of good heart believe it. The sender generally states that a large amount of his money is seized by central banks during civil war. He will express his emotional and pathetic story of life in the email before demanding in the end a help consisting of paying a small fee helping him to realize or transfer out his money from this country. You can find one of them I have received a while ago by clicking here. Besides, in exchange, the scammer offers to the participant a certain percent of this money seized. None of the money promised will be awarded to the participant, only ithe credit card used to pay the fee will be stolen. Another way that hackers use to steal credit card informations is hacking database of small websites. Indeed, sometime you may find a handsome indian carpet on sale in website. Deciding upon purchasing, your credit card informations will be stored in the website’s database. However someday, a skilled hacker could take over this website and hijack all informations stored including your credit card. For that, you have to first make sure that the website is high-reputed for security or well-reviewed. Secondly, you have to search first if the desirable item to buy is present on big websites like Amazon, Ebay or Alibaba beforehand. If none of these verifications can be accomplished, using a pre-paid credit card is highly recommended for safety. These are the top two reasons leading to credit card fraud, where some hackers will benefit from your checking account which you have worked hard to sustain. I hope that my recommendations will be helpful.

Interview concerning a typic credit card fraud

Hello. As I have promised in the last blog to come up with a interview describing one of the method used in credit card fraud, I have interviewed one of my classmate John who sympathetically shared his fraud incident with me.

Me : How did this incident started ?

John : So, my wife and I took a trip to Florida to go Disney and to go to NASA and stuff like that.

John : So while we were there at NASA , which is like clear on the side of the state from where Disney is, we were out of one of the Satellite's area on NASA and were about to buy a picture of us. Whatever we were doing, it was a picture. And, we knew that we had money .. more enough money in our account.
Because you plan for that when you are going for a Trip.

Me : Yes, for sure. So what happened ?

John : So when we went to go buy this picture, it declined our credit card.

Me : Oh... was it empty ?

John : Yes it was empty, it had like 20 bucks on it.

Me : That's sad..

John : So here we are, were are still on the other side of the state of Florida. We had to drive back where our hotel is and hadn't enough money to buy gas.

John : Ok, and my wife had my phone and here phone calling the bank and stuff like that. So, she was able to get in fifteen minutes time to found out what did happened and our bank reversed all the charges and put all the money back to our account. While we were out of the NASA, in the ***** middle of nowhere on the phone talking...

Me (interruption) : Which bank is it ?

John : US Bank. So they were incredible, we basically ended up getting all our money back.

John : When we got home about 2 months later maybe, we got our letter where we have to sign off saying "this was not our charge.. for each one".

Me : Yes is it for point out which one was a fraud ?

John : Yes... But yeah, it was catastrophic.

Me : Do you know who did the fraud ?

John : We believe that it was at the restaurant that was attached to out hotel. There was a person there who was sketchy.

Me : Oh ...

John : And you can tell that he was doing things ... and so our card got probably swiped.

Me : So, maybe he's just gotten a picture of the credit's card number and CVV.

John(interruption) : Our he maybe just swapped and recorded it.

Me : This is why you have to had your eyes pointed directly on the credit card when it is outside your wallet or stuff like that...

John: Right. And then, another incident was in Downtown Portland. I paid for parking. And about a day later, we started getting charges in New York on my credit card.

Me : Wow...

John : Obviously, the credit card scanner on the parking thing on Downtown caused my credit card to get napped.

Me : Yes, certainly it can happens since it's a public computer easy for access that control this parking. A 'backdoor' can easily be thrown on that parking's system.
Well thanks your for your solicitous time given, and I hope that this incident would be helpful for someone in the future

Skimming

In the last blog, I discussed some obvious and most-know methods used for credit card fraud operations. Meanwhile in this one, I will discuss some other complex methods that US citizens should be aware of. Skimming is a method that consists of copying the magnetic strip present in a credit card and duplicate it in another’s. This can be done by anyone. For instance, a corrupted employee on a gas pump can have a skimmer stashed out of sight of customers and would swap the card on it; so he can store the credit card’s records. Then, he would sell those informations illegally to another person. Consequently, criminals will use these duplicated debit cards to purchase whatever they would like until the victims notice unintentional purchases on their statements and contact the bank. 

The only way to deal with it is to make sure that your credit card stays in sight and never let her move out of your vision.

However, this is not a real solution. Some countries (like India) inject another electric band on the chip reader and duplicate every card swapped before processing the purchase.

The solution !?

Within the most recent advancement in a global initiative to combat fraud, researchers conceived the fabulous chip card reader (EMV), which you have certainly seen its large presence on the market this year. This have come out with a chip new technology analyzer which will play a role in reducing counterfeit card operation (J.P Morgan). Indeed, new credit cards projected to the market have started to come out with a new micro-computer chip that will pass on a large security program before processing a transaction. This means that reproduced/copied credits cards will be tackled by this reader !

However we are not yet far at this points. Firstly, most banks are in the process of reissuing all credits cards which will take a delay of a minimal of 5 years. Secondly, even since at October 2015 the government have passed a bill forcing all businesses to step forward and migrate to the new chip reader, many operators are still getting trouble with it. The issue is that new terminals for each business need to be certified by each card company before it can switch totally to the new reader. However, many mid-sizes markets didn’t get certified even one year after requesting it. Furthermore, the government didn’t extend the deadline for those company that can not use these new chip readers after buying it. 

This seem to be totally ridiculed for the US which should be in advance compared to other EU countries which have successfully migrated to the new system.

Hoping that this blog will help you to have a perception about Skimming, in the next post, I will blog about an interview of a comrade that have been victim of fraud.

Credit card fraud

United States is the country most affected by credit card fraud and accounted for 72 percent of data breaches in the world (Holmes, 2015). This issue is on the rise and touches many innocents who are victim of this steal. Under this circumstances, people affected by this fraud must run into diverse elucidations helping to protect credit card informations. Submission of credit card informations on email or low-reputed websites are two essential causes leading to credit card steal. Scamming, known as Email Phishing, is the most-know option used by Hackers to steal credit card informations. It all starts by an email revealing a fake shopping deal that can seem to come from the real business partener. Just like a deal of 400$ off on the new Iphone which excites certain consumers to take it .Their credit card informations will be transmitted to the theft; and in exchange they will receive nothing. Only these credits cards will be emptied as soon as the hacker handles them. To counter this kind of scamming, you have to make sure that the email deliver end-up in this example with @apple.com at first. Secondly, according to Apple FAQ, the store never ask to provide via email a full credit card number nor a social security number. All transactions must be handled in their official website. Another example of scamming is the “Nigerian email scam”. This is the funniest email scam I have ever read, but still sentimental people of good heart believe it. The sender generally states that a large amount of his money is seized by central banks during civil war. He will express his emotional and pathetic story of life in the email before demanding in the end a help consisting to pay a small fee helping him to realize or transfer out his money from this country. You can find one of them I have received a while ago by clicking here. Besides, in exchange, the deliver offers to the participant a certain percent of this money seized. None of the money promised will be awarded to the participant, only its credit card used to pay the fee will be stolen. Another way that hackers use to steal credit card informations is hacking database of small websites. Indeed, sometime you may find a handsome indian carpet on sell in website. Deciding to purchase it, your credit card informations will be stored in the website’s database. However someday, a strong hacker could take over this website and hijack all informations stored including your credit card. For that, you have to first make sure that the website is high-reputed for security or well-reviewed. Secondly, you have to search first if the desirable item to buy is present on big websites like Amazon, Ebay or Alibaba beforehand. If none of these verifications could be accomplished, using a pre-paid credit card is highly recommended for safety. These are the top two reasons leading to credit card fraud where some hijackers will benefit of your checking account which you have working hard to sustain. I hope that my recommendations will be helpful.