One of the new ways thieves can rob you blind

[canuckbid]

A heads up why shopping downtown may not be as safe as you think.



An increasingly cashless society has bred a new type of criminal.
Storming into an establishment and strong arming people to give up cash has given way to a highly organized network of near invisible criminals who wield impressive technological skills to separate people and institutions from their money.
“In the old days, criminals had to do a bank robbery to get people’s money. Now the open bank vault is the (merchant’s) point-of-sale terminal,” says Abbotsford Police Department fraud investigator Det. John Koppes.
In the last couple of years, criminals have developed a range of ingenious technological methods to obtain magnetic stripe and PIN data from the machines used to make debit and credit payments.
“It’s a new age in crime, involving highly organized criminal organizations,” said Koppes.
One method is quite basic. Thieves simply break into a business and outright steal the point-of-sale (POS) terminals and extract any remaining data, which is then encoded onto a stolen or counterfeit payment card.
“Skimming” card data is more sophisticated.
There are a number of techniques, but in all cases, cardholders unknowingly swipe their cards through a POS terminal or automated banking machine which has been tampered with to allow fraudsters to collect security data from the magnetic stripe and the PIN number, often without the bank or merchant being aware.
Criminals then create new cards, head to bank machines or stores, and withdraw or spend as much money as they can before the bank or card holder discovers the problem.
Koppes said in some instances, criminals enter a business just before closing and distract staff. They replace a handheld POS terminal with a dummy, make off with the original device and alter it overnight.
The next morning, they return to the same business and replace the fake POS with the original, now embedded with a parasite mechanism that collects customers’ security data for the thieves.
Hundreds of people could be affected and upwards of $10,000 to $20,000 could be spent per card.
Card holders who don’t lose money are also impacted.
Once authorities discover the source of a skimming scam, hundreds and even thousands of people who frequented the business can have their cards cancelled or blocked by financial institutions as a security measure, particularly if the fraud occurred at a high-volume location like a gas station, or large grocery store.
The magnitude of the problem is immense, with millions of dollars lost and thousands of customers impacted.
Koppes said he is confident in estimating there are 6,000 to 8,000 card-related fraud crimes each year in this community.
“You’re looking at 15 to 20 crimes a day where people use credit cards to go out and commit crimes in Abbotsford.”
Across Canada, $104 million was lost and 148,000 debit cards were exploited in 2008, according to a report from the Interac Association. That’s up from $44 million lost and 29,000 compromised debit cards in 2003.
According to the RCMP, counterfeit credit cards manufactured with skimmed data comprise 49 per cent of the dollar loss suffered by the issuing companies.
In 2008, more than $196 million was lost and close to 160,000 credit card holders were affected. The average loss per account was $1,241.
Card holders often want to know where a skimming incident has occurred, but banks, credit card companies and police most often don’t reveal the information.
“It wouldn’t be fair. Businesses often have no idea that the data was stolen. They are victims as well,” said Koppes.
Gene Blishen, general manager of Mount Lehman Credit Union, said debit card fraud is a growing problem for all financial institutions.
“It’s rampant.
“Before, we used to get one or two alerts a week from risk management agencies. Now it’s one or two a day ... that’s within a fairly small customer base of around 1,800 members.”
As a result, financial institutions, credit card companies and Interac are working together to find new ways to combat fraud.
“The idea is to leap frog into the chip (cards) to try to technologically outrun the bad guys,” said Blishen.
Replacing cards’ magnetic stripes with computer chips allows banks to continuously update security programs easily without having to cancel clients’ cards.
There’s a push to have chip cards in wide use by 2010.
In the future, consumers may also bypass third parties and use smart phones to conduct financial transactions.
In the meantime, a vigilant consumer is the best recipe for combatting debit card fraud.
Koppes said it’s also important to “target harden” merchants, making it difficult for thieves to obtain POS devices and data, and to educate customers about how to guard their cards.
Protect yourself
Check your bank/credit card statements or activity reports regularly for suspicious transactions.
Don’t lose sight of your debit/credit card when using at a business - make sure it is not double swiped.
Don’t keep your PIN number near your card
Don’t use easy to guess numbers for your PIN such as your birthdate or your phone digits.
Change PIN numbers for cards every couple of years.
Watch out for “shoulder surfers” - people who read your PIN as you enter it.
Only conduct debit/credit transactions when and where you feel secure.
Shred all personal and financial information such as credit card offers, credit card/ ATM receipts, and bank statements, before you dispose of them.
If you think you are a victim of fraud, it is important to notify your financial institution and deal with the incident as soon as possible.

[PATRIOT73]

One of the new ways thieves can rob you blind


tis called a bank of *ankers

[bluebedouin]

One of the new ways thieves can rob you blind


tis called a bank of *ankers

Collective noun for bankers is a "wunch".

[deltadelta48]

A heads up why shopping downtown may not be as safe as you think.



An increasingly cashless society has bred a new type of criminal.
Storming into an establishment and strong arming people to give up cash has given way to a highly organized network of near invisible criminals who wield impressive technological skills to separate people and institutions from their money.
“In the old days, criminals had to do a bank robbery to get people’s money. Now the open bank vault is the (merchant’s) point-of-sale terminal,” says Abbotsford Police Department fraud investigator Det. John Koppes.
In the last couple of years, criminals have developed a range of ingenious technological methods to obtain magnetic stripe and PIN data from the machines used to make debit and credit payments.
“It’s a new age in crime, involving highly organized criminal organizations,” said Koppes.
One method is quite basic. Thieves simply break into a business and outright steal the point-of-sale (POS) terminals and extract any remaining data, which is then encoded onto a stolen or counterfeit payment card.
“Skimming” card data is more sophisticated.
There are a number of techniques, but in all cases, cardholders unknowingly swipe their cards through a POS terminal or automated banking machine which has been tampered with to allow fraudsters to collect security data from the magnetic stripe and the PIN number, often without the bank or merchant being aware.
Criminals then create new cards, head to bank machines or stores, and withdraw or spend as much money as they can before the bank or card holder discovers the problem.
Koppes said in some instances, criminals enter a business just before closing and distract staff. They replace a handheld POS terminal with a dummy, make off with the original device and alter it overnight.
The next morning, they return to the same business and replace the fake POS with the original, now embedded with a parasite mechanism that collects customers’ security data for the thieves.
Hundreds of people could be affected and upwards of $10,000 to $20,000 could be spent per card.
Card holders who don’t lose money are also impacted.
Once authorities discover the source of a skimming scam, hundreds and even thousands of people who frequented the business can have their cards cancelled or blocked by financial institutions as a security measure, particularly if the fraud occurred at a high-volume location like a gas station, or large grocery store.
The magnitude of the problem is immense, with millions of dollars lost and thousands of customers impacted.
Koppes said he is confident in estimating there are 6,000 to 8,000 card-related fraud crimes each year in this community.
“You’re looking at 15 to 20 crimes a day where people use credit cards to go out and commit crimes in Abbotsford.”
Across Canada, $104 million was lost and 148,000 debit cards were exploited in 2008, according to a report from the Interac Association. That’s up from $44 million lost and 29,000 compromised debit cards in 2003.
According to the RCMP, counterfeit credit cards manufactured with skimmed data comprise 49 per cent of the dollar loss suffered by the issuing companies.
In 2008, more than $196 million was lost and close to 160,000 credit card holders were affected. The average loss per account was $1,241.
Card holders often want to know where a skimming incident has occurred, but banks, credit card companies and police most often don’t reveal the information.
“It wouldn’t be fair. Businesses often have no idea that the data was stolen. They are victims as well,” said Koppes.
Gene Blishen, general manager of Mount Lehman Credit Union, said debit card fraud is a growing problem for all financial institutions.
“It’s rampant.
“Before, we used to get one or two alerts a week from risk management agencies. Now it’s one or two a day ... that’s within a fairly small customer base of around 1,800 members.”
As a result, financial institutions, credit card companies and Interac are working together to find new ways to combat fraud.
“The idea is to leap frog into the chip (cards) to try to technologically outrun the bad guys,” said Blishen.
Replacing cards’ magnetic stripes with computer chips allows banks to continuously update security programs easily without having to cancel clients’ cards.
There’s a push to have chip cards in wide use by 2010.
In the future, consumers may also bypass third parties and use smart phones to conduct financial transactions.
In the meantime, a vigilant consumer is the best recipe for combatting debit card fraud.
Koppes said it’s also important to “target harden” merchants, making it difficult for thieves to obtain POS devices and data, and to educate customers about how to guard their cards.
Protect yourself
Check your bank/credit card statements or activity reports regularly for suspicious transactions.
Don’t lose sight of your debit/credit card when using at a business - make sure it is not double swiped.
Don’t keep your PIN number near your card
Don’t use easy to guess numbers for your PIN such as your birthdate or your phone digits.
Change PIN numbers for cards every couple of years.
Watch out for “shoulder surfers” - people who read your PIN as you enter it.
Only conduct debit/credit transactions when and where you feel secure.
Shred all personal and financial information such as credit card offers, credit card/ ATM receipts, and bank statements, before you dispose of them.
If you think you are a victim of fraud, it is important to notify your financial institution and deal with the incident as soon as possible.

And lately we have had a rash of dopey people from large agencies taking their work home on laptops and losing them to thieves. One lost social security numbers for thousands of people that way.

Another state agency hired out the job of addressing envelopes Wisconsin was to send to social security recipients in state, and the company printed the social security numbers on the outside of all the envelopes and mailed them.

Just think about stealing a company laptop will get you. An local auction company lost one with everyone's credit card numbers in it! Someone just walked in the auction hall as they were setting up and took it away.

Or steal your accountant's hard drive and get private info for hundreds of people in a snap.

Crazy world, the rules are changing and we have to keep up.

[canuckbid]

Crazy world alright. It was not very long ago that the government of Canada were trading their laptops back in with the hard drives intact.
They lease thousands from big firms and update every couple of years.
Imagine the imformation that was available to thieves! Apparantly the practice has been changed now and hard drives are destroyed. Yes it makes the news just about every day where a laptop has been stolen with classified imformation. Probally why they have come out with thumbprint ID and eve recognition security for them. I've also been doing lots of reading on backlinks and links. You'll notice that every secure site will be https and not http. Also if a person's site is not relevant to yours it can actually hurt your search results. Another door for the hackers I reckon. I'm working on a hosting site so I've really been getting a cram course on alot of this stuff. So much to learn. I had to get a SSL certificate so any one I host will have a secure connection

[TiasTreasures]

I have two hard drives sitting around here somewhere, I took them out of my old computers before I donated them to Goodwill. The problem is . . . how in the world do you destroy them? The darned things are either bolted or welded together (no screws) and impossible to smash. I tried a hammer and all I did was hurt my arm from the shock.

Now I can't remember where I put them. I suppose by the time I stumble across them, the data will be obsolete.

[cpeuf1]

We already have credit cards with chips in the UK and it does not stop fraud. It may have reduced it to start with, but the bad guys catch-up quickly. As for loosing information with lap-top our lot working in government offices are as doppy as your lot... The banks are also good at putting accounts print outs in the bin without even passing them through the shredder...