When thinking about all the retail shopping going on this time of year -- starting with the frenzy known as "Black Friday" a few weeks ago -- something rather important comes to mind.: What are some of the most important retail and personal security precautions that need to be taken around the holidays? With billions in commerce occurring and credit card receipts flowing like water all around us, the environment can be ripe for identity theft artists to ply their criminal trade, while the shoplifting crowd stuffs pockets and purses and pants and everything else with in-store stolen goods.So I asked security firm SecurityMetrics a few questions in this area to see what the experts had to say. The Q&A is below...
1) What are the top three types of fraud seen around the holidays?
- Email phishing attempts where an attacker tries to obtain someone's credentials to steal their money online.
- Credit card theft where an attacker steals your credit card information from servers on the Internet you previously shopped at.
- Viruses that provide unauthorized access to your computer workstation.
2) What does SecurityMetrics do to assist retailers in preventing fraud, theft, insider theft and all other types of shrinkage?
Phishing - We tell consumers never to click on the URL or html link inside of any email received.
Credit Card Theft - We test servers connected to the Internet for weaknesses that would allow an attacker to obtain credit card data. If these weaknesses are found then we show merchants how to fix these weaknesses. Viruses - We all know to use a good anti-virus program such as NOD32 or Kaspersky to stop viruses from infiltrating your systems.
3) Gift card fraud is on the rise as more and more people give them as gifts for the holidays -- what solutions does SecurityMetrics have to combat this?
Gift card fraud is still relatively low as a percentage of fraud. We have not had any direct experience with gift cards being stolen en mass. The gift card scams we hear about most frequently revolve around skimming or fencing stolen cards.
4) How do identity thieves most often steal people's identities? Does this increase around the holidays like now?
A good rule of thumb is that less than 1% of all credit cards stolen lead directly to identity theft. There is a webpage that shows the total number of personal records stolen from Feb 15, 2005 until today. The number is staggering -- 100 Million records stolen in less than a year. See http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm
We find that as shopping increases so does credit card data theft.
Another point of interest is that credit card thieves don't focus primarily on e-Commerce sites. Many of us believe if we stay away from e-Commerce sites we will reduce the odds of online credit card theft. However, online thieves want credit card track data. Track data allows thieves to reproduce credit cards so track data is much more valuable than only stealing credit card numbers.
What kind of stores have track data? Retail brick and mortar stores with card swipe point of sale terminals often have track data. A large number of these stores send their credit card data via the Internet for daily settlement. So attackers are looking to steal credit cards from retail stores with Internet connectivity.
If you look at the public information supplied by the credit card associations you'll find that brick and mortar or retail shopping could put you at more risk to identity theft than shopping online.
5) Are personal shredders still a good idea, and what types of documents should *always* be shredded?
Personal shredders are still a good idea. Dumpster diving still exists and you need to protect your data whether it is electronic or on paper. You should be certain your paper shredder is a cross cut shredder which cuts paper into much smaller pieces than a standard paper shredder. You should shred all documents containing personal information that isn't available in a phone book.
Phishing - We tell consumers never to click on the URL or html link inside of any email received.
Credit Card Theft - We test servers connected to the Internet for weaknesses that would allow an attacker to obtain credit card data. If these weaknesses are found then we show merchants how to fix these weaknesses. Viruses - We all know to use a good anti-virus program such as NOD32 or Kaspersky to stop viruses from infiltrating your systems.
3) Gift card fraud is on the rise as more and more people give them as gifts for the holidays -- what solutions does SecurityMetrics have to combat this?
Gift card fraud is still relatively low as a percentage of fraud. We have not had any direct experience with gift cards being stolen en mass. The gift card scams we hear about most frequently revolve around skimming or fencing stolen cards.
4) How do identity thieves most often steal people's identities? Does this increase around the holidays like now?
A good rule of thumb is that less than 1% of all credit cards stolen lead directly to identity theft. There is a webpage that shows the total number of personal records stolen from Feb 15, 2005 until today. The number is staggering -- 100 Million records stolen in less than a year. See http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm
We find that as shopping increases so does credit card data theft.
Another point of interest is that credit card thieves don't focus primarily on e-Commerce sites. Many of us believe if we stay away from e-Commerce sites we will reduce the odds of online credit card theft. However, online thieves want credit card track data. Track data allows thieves to reproduce credit cards so track data is much more valuable than only stealing credit card numbers.
What kind of stores have track data? Retail brick and mortar stores with card swipe point of sale terminals often have track data. A large number of these stores send their credit card data via the Internet for daily settlement. So attackers are looking to steal credit cards from retail stores with Internet connectivity.
If you look at the public information supplied by the credit card associations you'll find that brick and mortar or retail shopping could put you at more risk to identity theft than shopping online.
5) Are personal shredders still a good idea, and what types of documents should *always* be shredded?
Personal shredders are still a good idea. Dumpster diving still exists and you need to protect your data whether it is electronic or on paper. You should be certain your paper shredder is a cross cut shredder which cuts paper into much smaller pieces than a standard paper shredder. You should shred all documents containing personal information that isn't available in a phone book.
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