Four-fold increase in credit card fraud

By Peter Dinham
Sunday, 24 May 2009 13:06

Business IT - Security

Credit card fraud in Australia has been growing four times faster than the number of card transaction Aussies make and there’s been a warning to businesses to strengthen their defences against the fraudsters.

More than 50 percent of the growth in fraudulent transactions- to the tune of $120 million last year – was the result of the use of counterfeit cars or skimming.

Information security firm, CQR Consulting, also says that card-not-present fraud (CPN) – where neither the card not the cardholder is present at the time of the transaction, through a mail, telephone, fax or internet order – and the use of counterfeit cards or skimming, were the two main ways of fraud faced by card users.

CQR security specialist, Steve Darrall, says that in 2007 the cost of fraud due to counterfeiting/skimming cards was $32,825,883, rising last year by over 51 per cent to $49,781,436.

And, the total cost of card-not-present fraud in 2007 was $53,794,096, but it was also up – by 33 percent – last year to a total value of $71,578,908.

Darrall says the growth in card fraud rates is leading to increased efforts by banks and card brands to reduce their exposure to the fraud.

“We’re currently seeing a strong push across the banking industry for merchants who accept card payments to improve their defences. This involves minimising the need for merchants to hold sensitive cardholder information and securing essential information storage.”

Darrall says two initiatives undertaken by the industry to improve the security of card transactions and cardholder information include (i) payment card Industry data security standard (PCI-DSS), developed by the major credit card brands, the standard applies to all organisations that store, process or transmit cardholder payment data, regardless of their size or transaction numbers; and (ii) payment application data security standard (PA-DSS), a standard which applies to software applications designed to store, process or transmit payment card information.