Simple clear advice in plain English

Online banking fraud continues to rise

But card and cheque fraud in the UK is down

iamge of a credit card
security/credit-cards

Overall losses from fraud in the UK has fallen except for one area; online banking, according to the latest annual figures released by the UK Cards Association and Financial Fraud Action UK.

The UK card association and fraud prevention body found this crime has continued to rise; up 14 per cent on 2008 figures when losses stood at £52.5m to reach £59.7m last year.

The report said that this was partly due to cyber criminals targeting victims with increasingly clever methods, including launching increasingly sophisticated phishing attacks.

The association said 51,000 phishing incidents were reported last year; up 16 per cent on 2008. However, it also said the criminals continue to target vulnerabilities on customers’ PCs.

Phone banking fraud losses were collated for the first time in 2009 and totalled £12.1m. Most losses involve customers being duped during a phone call into disclosing security details, which the criminal then uses to commit fraud.

Mel Morris, chief executive officer with security firm Prevx said: "Online fraud is up for many reasons. For example, today anyone with a PC can purchase a banking fraud kit online for a few thousand pounds.

“These kits allow the purchaser to target PCs anywhere in the world and infect them with a powerful information-stealing Trojan (or Bot), which monitors all internet activity, recording everything and anything entered or displayed by someone browsing the web.

“In my view… in order to address the fraud problem, the industry needs to st op selling these silver bullets and instead educate people on the realities of PC and internet security. For instance, how having more layers of security is better than one.”

On a more positive note, the results of this survey show card fraud was down. Card not present fraud – crimes committed over the internet, phone and mail order – was down by 19 per cent from £324.4m in 2008 to £266.4m in 2009.

Fraud committed using counterfeit (skimmed or cloned) cards fell over the same period from £159.8m to £80.9m which is a decrease of more than a half (52 per cent).

Fraud on lost and stolen cards and card ID theft was also lower bringing the total fraud losses on UK cards down by 28 per cent between 2008 and 2009 to £440.3m – a decrease of £170m on the previous year’s total.

Melanie Johnson, of the UK Cards Association, which represents UK credit and debit card providers said: "The cards industry sees fighting fraud as a key part of keeping its customers' interests centre-stage. We are committed to a wide range of measures to ensure customers feel confident, safe and secure when they use their credit and debit cards, whether in a shop, abroad, online, at a cash machine or anywhere else.

"And a fall in card fraud is good news for everyone – UK consumers, retailers and the industry.

"We recognise that cards will always be targeted by criminals, so we are determined not only to continue to prevent, detect and deter those who are behind this type of crime, but also to make sure that innocent victims don't lose out."

Reader Comments

   

Add your comment

All fields must be completed. Your email address will not be displayed or used to send marketing messages.

All messages will be checked by moderators before appearing on the site.

See our Privacy Policy for more information.

Related articles

Recession causes huge rise in identity fraud

Criminals are finding it easier to hijack people's accounts

actionfraud

Fraudsters selling dangerous energy saving devices to UK consumers

Trading Standards warns people being conned by phone calls again

computer security

Stories about indestructible TDL-4 botnet "alarmist" says Kaspersky

Security company says TDL-4 rootkit is sophisticated and intelligent but can be avoided

Question & Answer

Q.Can I switch boot drives so that I can work on older...

> Read the answer

Q.Can I open my old genealogy files or have they gone...

> Read the answer

Q.Why are odd patterns appearing on my monitors shortly...

> Read the answer

Best deals on the web

img

Samsung RV520-A07

£356.50- Buy it now

img

Acer Aspire 5750G (LX.RXP02.019)

£399.99- Buy it now

img

Apple MacBook Pro (MD313B/A)

£904.37- Buy it now

Latest issue & subscription deals

Poll

Are you concerned about viruses that target mobile phones?

Jargon Buster

Computing terms explained in plain English

GIF

Grahics Interchange Format. A type of image file often used on the web, but now largely superseded by...

Great shopping deals from Computeractive