Identity theft scams increase by 330%
Identity theft scams increase by 330%
These "phishing" scams have been on the increase in Australasia, Europe, North America and have been targeted at financial institutions, ISPs and multi-national companies.
184 have already been recorded in the first quarter of 2004, compared to 171 for the whole of 2003.
Home users are said to be the most at risk by this increase. An example of such a hoax includes inviting users to click on a hyperlink button to update their passwords and personal details on a bank site which looks like a real one, when it is not really.
The people doing the scam aim to extract banking and credit details from the customers so that they can carry out fraud.
Out of five million online customers, 25,000 users have responded to these hoaxes.
Examples of companies that have been hit in Australia include the ANZ Banking Group, the Bendigo Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank, St. George Bank and Westpac Banking Corporation.
The result has been a loss of trust in online banking worldwide. DK Matai, Executive Chairman of mi2g said. "Whilst students are often blamed, the elaborate nature of these scams covering three continents (Australasia, U.S. and Europe) suggests the likely involvement of global crime syndicates, some of which are known to be more internationally diffuse than the banks and multi-nationals being targeted.
"It is clear that the criminals are going after liquid cash as opposed to selling everyday products or remedies via spam email. Our R&D shows that modern authentication technology can solve the problem given the will to deploy it."
The mi2g Intelligence Unit is expecting greater regulation from banks and financial services by 2005 that will restrict or outlaw password-only authentication techniques for online banking.
Online banking of the future might involve biometric security and smart card authentication.
The worldwide damage from phishing scams in 2003 were recorded at between US$32.2 billion and $39.4 billion. For 2004, this is predicted to rise to between $24.8bn and $30.4bn.
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